


don't let me go

by outwardbound93



Series: i'll keep moving (through the dark) [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, Light Angst, M/M, Reunion, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 07:55:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 82,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5658568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outwardbound93/pseuds/outwardbound93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry goes back to his journal, turns the page, and clears his throat. “Another one?” Niall strokes the guitar strings, Liam fiddles with the bass on his laptop, and Louis hits a bunch of random piano keys. “Let’s do it,” Louis says, so Harry pushes the lyric book over, and they start again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. it's time to try

**Author's Note:**

> many, many thanks to everyone for reading, and to my lovely gracious friends for putting up with me while writing this. series title comes from bruce springsteen's "blood brothers." check out the tmwy fics series for a little extra context in this fic! and you can listen to a bunch of songs mentioned in the fic [here](https://8tracks.com/niallspringsteen/don-t-let-me-go/).

“I don’t know, Harry,” Norah sighs, stretching her legs out underneath the wrought iron table they’re sat at in front of her favorite restaurant in LA. They serve margaritas in glasses the size of a fishbowl, and she’s sipping on one now, the drink bright pink. There’s even a little paper umbrella stuck in the top. She stirs her drink with the end of the tiny umbrella, the ice cubes clinking against the side of the glass. The salt around the rim of the glass slides off the side, the glass is sweating so much. It’s thought to be the hottest summer on record, so Harry’s heard.

He might’ve known things wouldn’t work out between them when’d started dating someone who lived on the other side of the country, but somehow he’s dully surprised. He’d thought, given enough money and fame, distance wouldn’t be an issue. But that’s what Norah’s saying it is. “We never saw each other enough to develop a really solid bond, and I’m at a point in my life where I want a serious relationship. I want more than casual hookups once or twice a month, even if the sex is pretty good, you know?”

“Pretty good?” Harry says. “I’m pretty good?”

“I mean,” she laughs, “whatever, you’re great, okay?” She bites her lip. “But I’m serious, Harry. Maybe we can still be friends, eh?”

Harry tucks his hair behind his ear like not having it in his face is going to help him think clearer. “Is there anything I could’ve done? Are you sure we should just give up?”

“You can’t make someone want you,” Norah says, and too late Harry registers how wise her blue eyes are, how knowing. It’s the latest in a long line of failed could-have-beens, and Harry lets her go with a hug and a kiss to the cheek.

Harry takes his Audi back to his house. He goes inside and changes out of his leather coat and printed shirt and puts on a jumper, instead. Then he mills about the house, not sure what to do. His cleaning service had come in just before he’d gotten here, so the whole place is sparkling and pristine even though Harry still thinks it’ll have at least one cobweb next time he leaves for three months.

Rumour is passed out on Harry’s favorite pool lounger when Harry pokes his head into the backyard. The old dog opens one eye, spots Harry, lets out a little huff and goes back to sleep. So Harry crosses the back garden and fits himself around the dog on the pool chair until Rumour huffs and makes room.

“You grouchy dog, you love me,” Harry says, pressing his face into the soft brown fur at the top of his head. Rumour just huffs again, moving his head enough to rest it on Harry’s thigh. “You’ll grow old with me, right, Rumour?” Harry asks, playing with Rumour’s floppy ears. “And you appreciate my cheesy eggs, don’t you, boy? They’re not too fatty at all.” He grimaces, thinking of the scene he’d almost had with Norah last time he’d flown out to see her.

Today, he’d planned on taking Norah mini-golfing and then perhaps to the drive-in theatre they just renovated off Vineland Ave. They’re showing a Selena Gomez picture at the drive-in and she’s close enough to – close enough to him that Harry can think about it, and not so close that he can’t. And then after maybe go on a ride, or for ice cream. Norah doesn’t like riding around on the Harley very much, but he’d hoped – oh.

He never…he’d had to leave the Harley here when he moved, because he couldn’t look at it without thinking of the complicated couple of months he’d had at the end of the band. But something about how sunshiny it is in southern California when New York is still covered in the iron blanket of winter, or about the way Norah had let him down so gently, or maybe it’s the way Harry’s been thinking of it more and more, but he finds himself leaving Rumour in the back garden.  

The heavy fabric of the tarp covering his motorcycle ripples and flutters in a sound that Harry reminds himself to record for his next album, and the Harley is revealed. The fender is still scratched from the time they leaned too far into a curve and kicked up a spray of rubble, and he never quite could get all the mud out from the wheel casings. It’s still a beautiful machine, and his veins run with a rush of adrenaline when he looks at it.

His housekeeper keeps the Audi and his Range Rover in tip-top shape, and he’s got the rest of his cars in a garage halfway across town, in the industrial district that always reminds him of Holmes Chapel and the gray, boxy buildings of its business district. He’s not sure that anyone has taken a look at the Harley in a long time, though. Still, he fetches the keys from the pegboard beside the door and the Harley rumbles to life with a sound that has Harry smiling uncontrollably.

He can almost hear Niall’s voice rumbling in his ear, “Now, remember not to drive on the wrong side of the road,” his arms tight around Harry’s waist. Harry blinks, his breath catching, and then he shakes his head and straddles the motorcycle. He doesn’t wait for a pair of arms to circle his waist, he just hits the button on the garage door opener, pockets the opener, and sets rumbling off down the road.

Harry hasn’t spent as much time as he thought he would in LA the past few years, so he takes Highway 2 to the 405, and from there it’s smooth sailing on I-10 from Sawtelle Boulevard to the Michigan Avenue exit, just a few miles shy of the Santa Monica Pier. He can still see the Ferris Wheel turning circles in the darkening sky when he exits onto Lincoln Boulevard and sails back toward Beverly Hills on residential streets.

Some of the houses look like places he’s seen on holiday to the tropics, with their beach-soaked fronts and sun-bleached paint jobs, the whole place still echoing with the smell of sunscreen, sand, and salt. The further he goes inland, the more it looks like other places he’s been, places he’s only seen through dark windows in the backs of cars on his way to a show.

There was this one time, in Amsterdam, where the sun had not yet gone down when they left for the venue, and it was like the whole city was lit up and sparkling along the edges of every building, every gleaming bicycle pedaled idly by, every window box of flowers.

He can still remember Liam’s and Louis’s faces plastered to the opposite window, Zayn sat up front looking too small in his seat to fill his seat. He remembers Niall beside him, biting his fingernails down to the quick and saying, lightly, for all that, “Wish we could ride bikes like them.” It’s still one of Harry’s favorite things he’s ever seen.

Harry’s ears ring in the sudden silence when he parks the bike inside the garage. He carries his helmet and his garage door opener inside the house with him and sets them on the counter. He always says he’ll clean it up later, but – maybe, if he gets around to it.

He props the back door open and whistles for Rumour, who comes trotting in with his dainty feet raised in the air like a show pony. Harry took him to three days of dog training and that’s all the little bloke remembers, except to take a bite of his food, sit halfway across the kitchen, and chew it. Harry’s forever sweeping up Rumour’s crumbs because, for some reason, he thinks it’s rude to eat at the bowl. “Funny dog,” Harry grins, ruffling Rumour’s fur.

Harry showers in the biggest bathroom in the house, the one just off the hall with the showerhead that feels like a thunderstorm and a massage all at once. He keeps the en suite door in his bedroom firmly closed. Rumour’s toenails _click click click_ on the hardwood in the hallway and then he leaps onto the bed beside Harry, who settles in with the remote and his hair tied back in a bun. It’s not as robust as the one he’d had at the end of the band, but it’s longer than it had been when he’d grown it out and then cut it all off to make a charitable donation. He doesn’t think he’d ever like to have it quite that short again.

It’s mainly whim that has Harry clicking on the _Best Songs of the Last Ten Years_ special. He has lots of friends on the list, Hozier and Vance Joy and Bruno Mars and Meghan and even Adele, although he still breaks out in a nervous sweat whenever he hears her voice ringing down the phone. He’s not quite surprised when his own band’s song comes up, _Story of My Life_ beating down the doors to his memory like a wolf in some Nordic folk tale.

They even show a little clip of the music video, the one with all the photographs strung up in the background of pictures of them as little boys. It’s especially strange to watch this video now, when the Harry on screen seems as much a little boy as the chubby toddler in the pictures behind him. Liam's big head pops up in the screen, that unself-conscious smile on his face, and he supposes to the camera, "So, technically, we've lived our lives in sync." 

Jesus. Gooseflesh pops up all over Harry's skin. That song was, what, six years ago? That’s a primary-schooler. That’s Rumour, roughly. Harry strokes Rumour’s fur softly, watching this younger version of himself sing straight into the camera, totally unabashed. He remembers Safaa blushing furiously any time Niall looked over at her, Niall’s collarbones thrown into sharp relief when he started pushing the video trolley along the tracks. Everything they did felt so epic. The biggest single, their biggest tour, their biggest album by sales. Up, up, up like a rocket ship without an eject button, although Harry never really wanted out.

It’s probably a good thing that Harry doesn’t remember his life having quite such a dramatic Before and After as he used to, when he couldn’t remember his life before the band took off and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what life was like after, either.

Gemma picks up her phone with a sigh. “Baby brother, what are you doing calling me at six-thirty in the morning?”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot the time difference,” Harry says in a rush. It’s been a long time since he forgot to think about that. It’s five hours from New York, but eight hours from LA. “So sorry, Gem, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” she laughs. She sounds tired, her voice hoarse like Harry’s always used to be about four months into tour. “I was awake anyway.”

Harry catches himself smiling like an idiot in the mirror above his dresser on the other side of the room. “Is little Juniper keeping you awake?”

“For the last time, Harold, I’m not naming my baby Juniper,” Gemma laughs. Harry can picture her hunched over her big swollen belly on her favorite purple armchair in the living room of hers and Brian’s house.

The last time Harry visited, Gemma let him attach his sound equipment to her stomach. He could actually hear her heart, and her baby’s, beating inside her body. It still trips him out too much to listen to very often, although sometimes he does, when he can’t fall asleep and he doesn’t want to bother security with a four o’clock run.

Harry hums. “Well, I really think you should consider naming her _something_ , because she’s going to be paddling around the world soon.”

“Paddling?” Gemma repeats. “What is this, the Black Lagoon?”

“I think that makes you the mean old teacher, _Mum_ ,” Harry says, and Gemma sucks in a hurt little breath, a smile on her face. She knows he's just joking, so he goes on, “I’m going to be the cool uncle with the ponies and the merry-go-round in his backyard.”

He can hear Gemma’s tired smile on her face. “Alright, Michael Jackson.”

From some deep chamber of Harry’s memory, he knows Zayn would’ve said, “Don’t talk shit about MJ,” in his hard Bradford accent, and he just says, “Well, alright.”

Gemma listens to his breath, and he listens to hers, for several minutes. Harry keeps running his fingers through Rumour’s silky fur, listening to the TV special in the background play back some of the songs that changed his life. Some that he wrote, and some that he didn’t.

“Why’d you call, honey?” Gemma asks. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” he says swiftly. “Dunno. Just taking a little spin down memory lane, I guess. I took the Harley out tonight.”

Gemma groans. “I hate that thing, you know it’s a death trap.”

“I know.”

Slowly, Gemma asks, “Well, how was it?”

Harry takes a deep breath. He doesn’t want to say the words, because maybe they sound kind of pitiful and awful, and Gemma had patiently suffered through a couple of years where Harry was really not very okay at all, and he doesn’t want to worry her. Still, he says, “Wish someone had been with me.”

“Someone, or _someone_?”

“Oh, yeah. Norah dumped me, too.”

“Harry,” Gemma laughs. She sounds a little exasperated but not worried, really, although she might be. Since she found out she was to be a mum she’s gotten much better at worrying about everything. “My little love.”

Harry groans. “Oh, stop that, you sound like Mum.”

Gemma does her best Anne impression, “Then obviously you’d know I think all your troubles could be fixed by coming home and eating all my food and sleeping a whole lot.” In her own voice, Gemma adds, “Well, what do you want?”

“I’m not sure,” Harry says slowly. “I guess I’m just feeling nostalgic.” He flips the remote in his hand, considering changing channels.

“You should ring the boys sometime,” Gemma yawns, her voice going high at the end. She always said she’d have made a terrible singer, but sometimes Harry likes her voice more than his own. “You’ll be okay?”

Harry says, “Of course. Get some sleep, sister. Let me talk to the baby.”

Muttering about her nutter of a brother, Gemma nonetheless presses her phone to her own belly, where there’s a baby growing. Harry can’t quite form the words he wants to say, so he just starts humming “Story of My Life,” instead, the chorus bit about driving all night to keep her warm. He doesn’t know what most of the other lyrics mean, to be honest.

“Good night,” Gemma says softly, and Harry says the same.

He puts his phone back on the nightstand to charge and scrunches down in bed until he’s just got his head propped up by the pillows, so that he can watch the telly. He doesn’t change the channel until the music special is long over.

Harry takes the usual commercial flight to New York two days later, when he’s caught up with Chelsea Handler and James Corden and the rest of that good old lot, and then he finds himself greeting the doorman at his flat in New York, Wes, with a hug. Wes ruffles Harry’s shaggy hair when he pulls away, and Harry beams up at him. “Good to have you back,” Wes tells Harry with a little bow, taking the strap of Harry’s bag off his shoulder and draping it over his own. “Shall I help you up?”

So of course Harry invites him in, and he and Wes settle into the nook just off the kitchen where Harry squeezed two overstuffed armchairs in front of a big bay window. Wes props one ankle up on his knee and sips his tea slowly, same as he always does. “How was it?” he asks, grinning.

Harry shrugs. “Long, I suppose. Felt long. What about you, how are the grandbabies?”

Wes beams, and then he launches into a detailed explication of every one of his seven grandchildren. Harry’s very happy he made a friend of the doorman who tucked him into bed once. He sees Wes out when Wes has to get back to work, although he’s been working around Harry’s building for so long now that he basically has the run of it.

Rumour chows down on half a can of the fancy dog food mixed with her usual dry kibble, the spoiled pup, and Harry changes into his gym clothes for a run. Rumour trots along beside him, and Harry only has two security guards along for the jog, one in front and one behind.

He has a few invitations to go out that night, so he meets Chris Martin and Rik Simpson at an ivy-covered vegetarian restaurant where Harry has a grilled cheese with basil and rosemary and thin-sliced Granny Smith apples in. He has sweet potato fries on the side, and he’s still somehow a little surprised that there’s no one teasing him about it. He invites both of them to visit him in the studio he rents in Manhattan, and they make plans for sometime in the next month, hopefully. Time allowing.

And then Harry goes home. He tries to keep Rumour in his own dog bed on the floor, but of course he insists on hopping up on the bed and curling into Harry’s back until he all but edges him off the bed. Harry reaches over and pulls the string on the lamp on his nightstand, and the room goes dark.

***

Harry usually rents out an entire recording studio in Manhattan. Of course, it’s the size of a shoebox with one recording booth and just enough space for a drum kit, much less musicians and guitars, but he loves it. The wooden floorboards are softened with at least half a dozen layers of tattered Persian carpets, and he’s brought in throw blankets for the sound engineers and technical producers and band posters or movie posters that he thinks just look cool and tacked them to the inside of the recording booth so he has something to look at while he’s recording someone.

Most of his journals are heaped up in stacks on the piano pushed up against the wall of the booth or on the shelf above the technician’s heads. It’s lovely to just reach up and find a half-forgotten lyric, and finish a song with some help from his past.

He has a tiny little indie band not yet even signed to a label in his recording booth right now. Of course, that’s the benefit of going indie himself. Louis’s taken the corporate route and runs his own label, but Harry likes the freedom of working with people on reference from his friends. He gets to go to a lot of underground shows as a result of scouting out new artists, even though most of the time the acts are terrible.

Sometimes, though, he stumbles upon a band like this, a tiny outfit named Stillwater from Georgia with a frontwoman the size of a teacup and a hulking bassist whose fingers are so delicate on the strings. It’s not a very well-paying gig, but he gets a lot of credit from the acts who get sent up to the Grammys. And he’s got enough money for several lifetimes, really.

He’s looking for a lyric to follow up _who we are is what we need_ in one of his old journals. He used to write the year on the spine of the journal, but now he doesn’t bother. He remembers writing these things too well, he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget being sat in JFK on bad weather for the better part of four hours waiting on a delayed flight. There was a couple with a newborn baby between them, and Harry hadn’t seen them look each other in the eye once. He just heard their terse voices, and the baby’s garbled soft noises. He filled up half a journal with sketches of them and lyrics imagining what their circumstances were.

This journal must have been from ages ago, when he was still scrawling everything down in red pen. There’s even some bright orange warning tape sticking ticket stubs to a Coldplay concert and a wristband from Leeds Festival in. He should take a picture of the Coldplay ticket; Chris would love that.

It takes Harry a long moment to remember who he’d gone to Leeds Fest with, and then he studies the journal more carefully, forgetting about looking for another lyric. These songs are all about feeling like a bullet train speeding through his life, passing milestones without enough pause to really look at them. Harry remembers that feeling still. There’s even a very rough version of “Don’t Let Me Go” scrawled in pencil on one page.

He’d started fobbing some line about how songs can be about anything, an emotion or a person or a day or a place, somewhere near the end. But really, his songs were always about people, and just as soon he’d write about himself. Niall told him once about a U2 song that Bono wrote from the perspective of his mother, so that’s what Harry had been thinking about on this one.

And then he’d seen a photograph of himself and Alice as little kids on a shelf in his mother’s house when they were home filming for _This is Us,_ and he’d written about leaving himself behind on the flight back to work. Zayn was sat next to him on the plane, dozing on his shoulder, and he could hear Liam and Louis further up the plane messing about with the Xbox.

It hits him like the g-force of a bullet train picking up speed until it’s all but skimming the surface of the tracks. Like a mag-lev train, Harry rocking on his heels and holding onto a seatback for support. Maybe it’s time the band got back together. Maybe it's time  _he_ got the band back together. 

“I think I know what it is,” Harry rings Gemma to say. She picks up sounding only slightly exasperated, just five hours between them now. “I think maybe it’s the band.”

Gemma laughs. “It’s about time.”

***

Not that Harry had been planning it except maybe subconsciously, but he has well more than an album in his notebooks. He has enough material for six albums, maybe, plus bonus tracks. He parses through them on the plane to London, sorting out what would make for a good One Direction song and which ones are too slow and soppy. Those he can sell to someone who can play songs like that.

Gemma picks Harry up from the airport. Security escorts Harry out of a rear exit to her waiting car, because even though he’s just a producer and writer now, people still want to see him. Know about him, like. Like he’s some kind of touchstone, or something. Harry leans forward in his seat to kiss Gemma’s cheek hello, and then he goes in for a kiss with Brian, too.

Brian splutters, and Gemma punches Harry on the leg. “Just making sure he doesn’t enjoy kissing anyone but you,” Harry says loftily. “No cheating allowed,” he reminds Brian, who just laughs and shakes his head. He’s flushed from the tops of his cheeks to his neck, and it feels Harry with a bizarre shade of fondness. Brian’s silver wedding ring glimmers on his hand when he turns the steering wheel, and Harry leans back into his seat and buckles up. “Thank you for picking me up.”

“It’s our pleasure,” Brian says politely. He’s wearing a collared shirt, and the metal frames of his glasses look smooth and polished. Even the space behind his ears is all clean, the arms of his glasses hooked over the back of his ears. His short brown hair smells like cucumber shampoo. Harry has never in his life been one of those meticulous people, but he appreciates those who are. They’ve kept his life on track when he otherwise would’ve totally forgotten what he was meant to be doing. “Do you want to stop for lunch, or we’ve got food at home?”

“Stop, please,” Harry says immediately. He pulls out his phone to call ahead and make sure they can get a table in the back, near an exit, if necessary. “I know better than to try my sister’s cooking.”

“Hey,” Gemma drawls, just like Harry, and he reaches up and pulls on a lock of her hair. She swats his hand away.

“I’ll make breakfast tomorrow,” Harry offers. “If you want. Gemma, I’ll show you how to cook eggs without burning them. Or serving them raw.”

Gemma mutters something foul under her breath, but Brian shoots Harry a grateful look in the rearview mirror.

In fact, it’s Brian who helps Harry make breakfast the next morning. He’s a decent enough cook to keep himself and Gemma alive, but Harry makes sure to pop in to Sainsbury’s for sprinkles and food coloring. His mum used to let them decorate their food so that they would eat the healthy stuff, and anyway, it makes pancakes way more fun.

“Thanks for this,” Brian says again, when Harry has him pinching red and blue sprinkles onto the pancakes sizzling on the hob. “I think my kid is going to think I’m very boring.”

“You are very boring,” Harry acknowledges, nudging him gently. “Luckily, kids like boring and stable.” He pokes at the pancakes with the spatula in his hand, checking for when they come up off easy so he knows it’s time to flip. “Besides, this is all Anne Twist stuff. Has she visited?”

Brian nods quickly. “Yeah, and she’ll be here for a while when the baby comes.”

“Can’t believe my sister is going to be a mum,” Harry murmurs, although in some ways, he can. Just, when Brian left them alone on the couch to make popcorn while they were watching a movie last night, Harry tried to put his feet in Gemma’s lap and Gemma pinched his ankle, so he’d tried to give her a wet willie.

They’d settled with Gemma’s swollen feet in Harry’s lap. She was wearing those thick, fuzzy socks she’s owned for the better part of the last three years, something he’d sent to her from a novelty shop in New York when he’d first moved. Harry made a mental note to buy her another pair when he got back.

“So are you just in town to check on her?” Brian asks, in his matter-of-fact way.

Harry shrugs. “Kind of. Not really.”

Brian folds his arms, leaning back against the counter. “So what, then?”

“I’m going to try to get the band back together,” Harry tells him. Every time he says the words out loud, his blood rushes in his ears. He flips the pancakes in the pan. “I have to start with Liam or the others will never agree.”

When Harry looks round at Brian, he’s beaming. “Sounds like you know what you’re doing, at any rate.”

“Guess I do,” Harry shrugs. Then, “Shit, give me a plate, I think the pancakes are burning.”

He borrows Gemma’s safe little Honda to drive over to Liam’s. Harry called ahead so at least Liam is expecting him, although he’s running about half an hour early. He stops for Philly cheesesteak sandwiches and chips so that at least Liam will be a little bit happy to see him.

In fact, Liam opens the door with a huge smile across his face. Liam still looks like such a little kid when he grins like that, Harry can’t help but poke him in the face. Liam pulls Harry into a crushing hug, his breath hot against Harry’s neck when he tucks his face in. Seeing one of the boys again is always a little bit overwhelming. He never knows how much he’s missed them until he can smell their cologne and see their faces, and then it’s so hard to look away. Liam smells like deodorant and protein smoothie, and Harry fluffs Liam’s curly hair. “You’re stealing my look, then?” he asks him. “First the hats, now my hair. What’s next, my shirts? My shoes?”

“I wouldn’t wear your shirts or shoes for all the Grammys in the world,” Liam says tartly, his nose wrinkling.

Harry adjusts the wide-brimmed hat on his head. “I look fetching,” he tells Liam. “Let me in, I’ve got to put these sandwiches down and go pee.”

“As long as you do it in that order,” Liam laughs, moving aside to let Harry into his house. He bought a house in Surrey years back, and he finally moved into it proper when the band went on break. “Oh, and remember not to go into the back garden, I’ve left the security on.”

So of course Harry has a little wander into Liam’s back garden when he’s done relieving himself in the loo. Liam has a tennis court and a swimming pool in his back garden, for Christ’s sakes.

Liam doesn’t have Niall’s green thumb; Harry can tell by the way his garden is a riot of colorful tropical flowers. There’s no way Liam is keeping those alive by himself. Motorized pool floaties drift around Liam’s pool, and his collection of zombified garden gnomes is just eerie enough to make Harry wish he’d accepted Liam’s invitation to come around for his Halloween party. He’d make a good target for one of those Ocean’s 11 movies, the one with all the famous handsome actors.

The security cameras and spotlights hanging from the eaves of Liam’s house and planted in his garden swivel around and train themselves on Harry, following him when he moves. It’s kind of a nice sensation, really. Harry’s in the middle of pretending to navigate his way around a minefield of red lasers when Liam stumbles into the back garden with his phone to his ear. “I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know how anyone got back – oh, for the love of God, it’s just Harry. No, no, I don’t need anyone to come. Yes, I’m sure.”

Harry drops his arms from the mantis position he’s been holding. “I’m not the one with a heated pool in my back garden,” Harry says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at it. “You deserved this.”

“You’re unbearable,” Liam laughs, pretending to strangle him. “Jesus. Come eat before I push you into the pool.”

“We can do that later,” Harry agrees, slinging his arm around Liam’s neck. Liam takes Harry to the greenhouse attached to his house, so that they eat surrounded by his plush garden. Harry likes it, quite a lot, actually; it reminds him of tropical places they’ve been. Parts of Australia and America, and South America, too. “So,” he starts. “What have you been working on?”

Liam’s forehead wrinkles. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Because I love you and I’m interested in your life, why do you think?” Harry laughs. He scratches his jeans under the table.

“Well,” Liam starts slowly. “Producing, mainly. I finished Lorde’s album a few weeks ago so mostly remixes since then, I’m thinking of taking a little break before I dive back into my next project. I’ve heard Years and Years are gearing up for their next album soon, though, so maybe I won’t – and why are you looking at me like that?”

Harry takes a deep breath. “We should get the band back together.”

“What? You mean our band? One Direction?” Liam laughs. “Harry.”

“You’re bored,” he says, narrowing his eyes at Liam. “I can tell. When was the last time you couldn’t sleep through the night, you were so excited?”

Liam heaves a sigh. “A long time, Harry, of course. Life isn’t meant to be like that. You’re meant to sleep through the night.”

“We’re not,” Harry counters. “Not us. Not you. You don’t sleep until the sun’s coming up and the rest of us are passed out around the hotel room.”

“Not anymore,” Liam says gently. “I hate to tell you this, Haz, but I think those days are behind us.”

Harry reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out his latest journal and a pen. He flips to a new page in the journal and pushes it across the table toward Liam, who accepts the pen with a quizzical look on his face. “All the things we never did,” says Harry. He nods toward the book, so Liam draws it closer to himself. “C’mon, play along. What did we never do as a band that you always wanted to do?”

“Harry,” Liam tries hesitantly. The pen twitches in his hand like part of him, at least, wants to start scribbling. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Louis and Niall –”

Harry just pushes Liam’s hand down until the pen hits the page. “We never got a Grammy,” Harry starts, and finally Liam scrawls it across the page. _Grammy nom._

“What else?” Liam asks. “We never did a live album. Or an EP.” _Live album, EP_ go on the list in Liam’s nice round handwriting.

“We never had very good merchandise,” Harry says dryly. He remembers Louis and Liam going rounds over that in the back of the car on the way to the stadium before every single goddamn show. Liam always wanted to rep their own merch on stage, and Louis always warned him off it. Cal would just ask Niall to please put on the shirt for a picture, instead.

 _Swag_ , Liam writes on the page. “What?” he demands. “I can use that word.”

“Okay, P. Diddy,” Harry drawls.

 _Collaboration_ , Liam adds.

Harry slowly swirls his spoon around his teacup. “We never really had songs that showcased, like, us as musicians, either. I mean, I know only – we only ever really had the guitarist in the band, but I know Louis can pluck out a tune on the piano.”

“Did he ever learn the guitar?” Liam asks.

Harry blinks. “I thought you’d know.”

“Uh, yeah. Not so much.”

Frowning, Harry asks, “Did you two have a falling out?” He can’t remember them rowing at Louis’s last New Year’s party, but maybe that’s because he missed the last one. Did he go to the one before that? He’s quite sure he did. He saw them there, and Freddie and Belle, who are _so_ big now.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Liam says, in his pleasant, interview-positive way. _Acoustic songs,_ he adds to the list. “But Harry,” Liam adds, tapping his pen against the page. “We’ve got to get the others on board, first. That might be harder than getting me to go along.”

“Wait, that means,” Harry starts, a smile dawning across his face. “You’re in?”

“I mean, I’ve got to run it by Soph,” Liam laughs. “But to be honest, I think she’ll be glad to have me out of the house.” He reaches across the table and ruffles Harry’s hair. “You had me at ‘We should get the band back together.’ I’ve been waiting for you to say that for years.”

Harry traps Liam’s foot between his under the table. “I love you. I could kiss you.”

“Please don’t,” Liam says, so Harry lets him go and eats his cheesesteak sandwich, instead.

Harry takes Gemma’s and Brian’s car back to them, and then he stretches out on the couch with his head on Gemma’s lap so that his ear is pressed up against her belly. He can almost, just about, hear the baby kicking around in there. “The next one is Louis,” Harry says, even though no one’s really listening. The baby kicks in Gemma’s belly, and Harry nods to himself. Gemma just pulls on his ear.     

***

Harry doesn’t get a chance to talk to Louis for a couple of months. He flies back into New York from London and goes immediately into writing and recording sessions with a ballad singer by the name of Eryn Allen Kane. She likes to bury the hook in the pre-chorus, so Harry spends a lot of time reworking some of the material he already had worked up for her. He’s proud of what he comes up with, but by the time he pulls himself out of the recording studio, it’s September.

He hadn’t thought of it until he was checking his phone in the back of the car on the way to see the American Ballet Theatre at the Koch Theatre, and then he sees the date. Harry goes still. His phone screen goes dark, but it’s like the numbers are emblazoned on the back of Harry’s eyelids. He clears his throat and sporadically tightens his fingers around his phone, like he might break it and not have to do anything. But now that he knows what day it is, he knows he has to call. It’s the right thing to do.

Swallowing hard, Harry presses Niall’s name on his phone – not on his favorites list anymore, although he’d not been able to bring himself to delete it; he’d just gotten a new phone, and not added him, and even that was hard – and brings the phone to his ear. It rings three times, Harry’s heart clutching tighter in his chest each time and then it goes to voicemail.

Harry listens to Niall’s voicemail message, and it’s strange how alien his voice sounds, even though Niall’s voice is almost as familiar to Harry as his own. “ _Hi, you’ve reached Niall Horan. I’m either on stage or asleep, so you can leave a message or text me. Oh, but if it’s Thursday I’m down at the pub, so come find me_.”

“Hi,” Harry starts uncertainly. He plucks at the expensive, thin fabric of his dress pants. “I’m on my way to see a ballet, if you can believe it. I’m sure you’d hate it. I hope you’re doing something you like for your birthday. Um,” he swallows. “So, yeah. Happy birthday. Call me if you get – if you feel like it. Maybe I’ll see you around. Happy birthday,” he says again, and hangs up.

His palms are still sweating when he climbs out of the back of the limousine into a field of flashing cameras, but his publicist is waiting to lead him inside by the sleeve, so he just focuses on smoothing his hair back from his face and putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes the scar on the palm of his hand twinges in situations like that, as if the crowd might surge in from either side and overwhelm him. It’s not a fear he thought he’d have, actually.

His date is waiting just inside. Harry likes dating models not just because they’re beautiful, but because they seem to have so much comportment. Kira, at least, never seems as if she’s thinking about the crowd mobbing her. She takes Harry’s proffered arm and they sweep up to their box without any issue.

They take the same car home after the show, and Harry accepts her invitation to come up to her flat for “coffee,” which is almost always a polite term for sex. Not that he doesn’t have a healthy interest in sex or anything, but sometimes it gets a little tiring, not being familiar in it. Like he’s heard James or Ben wax on about, how it gets so easy-going after a while. It’s still fun with someone new but he almost always has to make it clear that he likes having his hair pulled or that going down on someone is his pleasure, not just theirs, and, anyway. Whatever. It’s not like he’s ever really had that, anyway, and you can’t miss something you never had.

Except, like. For a few weeks after they met Lindsey Buckingham, and – never mind.

Harry emails Louis’s assistant to find out if she can work him into Louis’s schedule, and she slots him in the middle of November. So Harry rings Louis to find out if he can be bumped up the itinerary. “I want to meet with you but your assistant scheduled me too far away,” Harry whinges. “Can you bump me up?”

“You – why’d you call my assistant if you were just going to call me?”

“I thought you might have put me on some kind of VIP list. Is there not a VIP list?”

Louis sounds very amused when he says, “No, there is. You’re just not on it.”

Harry gives a beat, and then he clucks his tongue. “Anyway, fit me in, please. Oh, wait. Can you bring the kids?”

“I’m not – are you really calling to have a lunch with me?”

“Yes,” says Harry patiently. “Only, I remember how you are, I figured your assistant was the best way to go.”

Harry can hear Louis counting to three. He can just picture him pinching the bridge of his nose, and then he lets out a gusty breath over the line. “Do we have to see each other in person, or are you calling for a specific reason?”

Harry worries over his bottom lip. He should’ve had Liam call, or not called himself, just waltzed in one day and charmed his way past Louis’s assistant. He can hear how tired and scratchy Louis’s voice is, and he can picture the purple rims around his eyes. Even when they were so young, he always had that look about him, like fine china. Strange, how it’s only taken Harry ten years to recognize how vulnerable his own band mate is.

“It’s important,” he settles for saying. “I mean, it’s just a catch-up. So it’s not that important, unless not catching up with one of your old bandmates isn’t important, so...”

“Okay,” Louis says slowly. “I’ll have my assistant set up a lunch.”

“And the kids,” Harry reminds him.

Louis’s slow to say, “I can only bring one, so. I’ll bring Freddie.”

Harry wants to ask about Belle, Louis’s daughter with the mischievous light dancing in her eyes, just like her dad’s, but he doesn’t dare say anything. “Thank you,” he says instead.

“Bye,” Louis just sighs.

Even with Louis stretching to fit Harry into his jam-packed schedule, he can only move up their lunch by a couple of weeks. Harry still has the finishing touches to put on Eryn Allen Kane’s new album, and then she wants him to produce a collaboration between her and Leon Bridges, so he spends another three weeks with them in the studio trying to decide between covering a Frank Sinatra tune or whipping up some original material.

When his own band was first starting out, Harry remembers recording _Up All Night_ in a matter of weeks. They spent a little time in Sweden at the very beginning, and all Harry really remembers from that is Zayn arguing with the producers about how his voice should sound.

Then they went to LA for the first time, and that Harry remembers better: the sun and the heat and the sand, and filming the “What Makes You Beautiful” video with beautiful girls they got to take to the pier before they ever shot anything.

‘Course, they hadn’t had any creative control, really. So that’s what’s nice about helping up and coming artists like this. Sometimes Harry does know better – a song isn’t hooky enough for wide radio play, or the lead singer’s vocals are too strong on a certain point; you’ve got to scale it back sometimes so you can hit the listener with a wall of sound for a big anthemic chorus, something he learned from Zayn – but for the most part, he just facilitates new music. That’s the best part.

“How’s Philippa?” Harry asks Gemma over the phone on a lunch break one day. He works right across the way from a kebab shop. He’s taken Jonny and Alice over on visits from Holmes Chapel’s and they’ve always gone pale and asked to go somewhere else, but Harry doesn’t have the uni experience of puking up a nice kebab after a night out. It’s just one of those things. He digs his fork into his falafel and hunts around for a piece of lamb.

Gemma groans. “For the last time, I’m not naming my kid Philippa.”

“Well, you can’t name her Anne. If you name her Anne, then you have to name her Anne Harriet, for me and Mum.”

“Why would I name my baby after you? Mum birthed me, not my dorky little brother.”

“Because you love me,” Harry answers, stuffing a huge forkful of rice into his mouth. He chews quickly and starts talking before he’s done swallowing. “And also, because Harriet is a lovely name. Honestly, Gemma, at this point your baby is going to come out and there won’t be any name for it, and then what’ll you do? Hm? Your baby is going to go around known as No-Name for the rest of her life because you couldn’t think of anything. A disaster, all around.”

Gemma laughs. “You sound like Louis. Have you spoken to him recently?”

“Soon,” Harry says. He puts his sister on speaker and pulls up the calendar app on his phone to check. A week and a day. Eight days. “Liam made me plan a pitch, I – oh, hold on a second, I’ve another call coming in.” Harry thumbs back over to the telephone app, and when he sees the 044 area code, he blanches. “I think,” he starts, his voice faint. “Gem, I’ve got to go, can I call you back later?”

“Sure thing, love,” Gemma says easily. “Bye, dork.”

Harry gives himself time for two deep yoga breaths, the kind that make his ribs feel like they’ve been stretched by his lungs. Then he takes the call. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Niall says easily, like it doesn’t pain him to talk to Harry.

“Hi,” Harry just says, and waits to see what else Niall is going to say.

“Sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” Niall says breezily. “It’s only, what, a month since my birthday?” He laughs. “I’m sure I’m doing better than Louis, still.”

Harry swallows. “He’s got that fancy assistant working for him now,” he tries. His voice sounds steadier, if softer, than he thought it would.  

“Ah, there is that,” Niall groans. “Have you spoken to him lately, then?”

“Um. Just a bit.”

Niall takes a moment to respond, and Harry clutches the phone to his ear and listens to him breathe. He can hear music, faintly, on Niall’s end of the call, and he wonders if it’s one of Niall’s own albums, or someone else’s. Maybe he’s sat at home in his own recording studio on a break from work, or maybe he’s at the pub with his mates, and they’ve gone to the loo so he decided to call Harry. It’s not really his place to know, but Harry still would really, really like to.

Slowly, Niall says, “Well, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to call and say thanks. Y’know, for remembering. ‘T was nice.”

His voice is so much more Irish-tinted than Harry remembers. Harry folds his legs up to his chest, scrunching down in his chair. _I miss you_ , Harry wants so badly to say. _I miss everything about you_. But he can’t, like. He can’t get the band back if he keeps thinking like that. “How’s your wife?” he says instead.

Niall says, “She’s great, yeah. We’re – we’ve been talking about putting an extension on the house to make room for a proper piano, like. Maybe one of them grand ones like in Phantom of the Opera.”

“I think that was a pipe organ,” Harry furrows his brow, trying to remember. “You know, because of all the…pipes.”

“Oh.” Niall laughs. “You’re right. Well, hell. Don’t know whether to go with a pipe organ or a piano now.”

Harry sits forward and puts his elbows on the sound table in front of him. “Always liked the way piano sounds better.” Louis and Liam and Zayn passed this little electric keyboard around between them like a joint sometimes, plonking out melodies like drops of water into the ocean. Quiet, soothing little notes. He wonders if they even remember that, or if he’s the only one that does.

“Could get Louis to give me pointers,” Niall says softly.

“Yeah.” Harry clears his throat. “Right, well, I’ve got to – I’m at work, I…”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Niall says quickly. “I just wanted to call and say, y’know, thanks. So thank you. I’ll, uh, talk to you soon.”

Harry just hums, and Niall rings off. Harry slumps back in his seat, looking at the phone in his hand. He can’t have the band back without that, too. Louis and Liam and Niall and Niall’s wife, Aisling.

He’s trying very hard to be okay with it.

***

 “Sorry I’m late,” Louis says, drawing back two chairs from the table Harry’s sat at in LA’s Soho House. Rumour lifts his heavy head off of Harry’s foot so that Harry can stand up and give Louis a quick hug hello. He settles back in his seat, abruptly nervous. He should’ve brought Liam. He shouldn’t have brought Liam if things aren’t right between him and Louis, but shit, he wishes he weren’t here to make this pitch alone.

A little person makes the arduous journey onto the chair between them, and Harry does a double-take, Freddie looks so much like Louis. They have the same light brown hair, the same fine features. He’s even got some of Louis’s lips and nose. Harry offers his hand, and Fred takes it politely.

“You must be Fred,” Harry says. “I’m Harry. Harry Styles. I’m an old friend of your dad’s.”

“Harry, like your hair?” Fred asks, looking up at Harry’s face. It’s not nearly as long as it had been before he’d donated it, but it’s long enough to touch his collar and the tops of his shoulders. When it’s dry, anyway. He’s given up trying to flatten his curls so he’s got ringlets again, even though he thinks it makes him look a little like a baby.

Louis struggles out of his coat and drapes it over the back of his chair, and then he reaches over to Fred and pulls the beanie off his head, putting it in his own coat pocket. “Traffic was mad,” Louis goes on, like he hasn’t been listening. He picks up the menu and studies it with a little too much focus, his eyes read. His hands tremble ever so slightly, rattling the plastic menu.

“No,” Harry tells Fred. “Not like Harry Potter, either. Sorry.”

“Who?” Fred asks, wrinkling his nose.

Oh, God. Now Harry feels old. “I knew you,” he changes the topic, “when you were a tiny little baby. You’re much bigger now. How old are you?”

“Almost five,” Fred says dutifully. “I can blow a gum bubble. D’you want to see?”

“Sure,” Harry nods agreeably.

“Don’t,” Louis snaps suddenly. “It’s rude, Fred, your mum wouldn’t want you doing that.”

Fred drops his chin. “Sorry, Dad,” he says softly, in his American accent. Rumour puts his head on Fred’s lap, and Harry watches Fred stroke his dog’s head. Rumour catches his eye, and it strikes Harry, not for the first time, how smart his dog is.

“So how’s the label?” Harry asks. Last he heard, business was booming. Louis had been popping bottles on three thousand dollar bottles of wine at the last New Year’s party that Harry was at and dousing his guests in it. Harry remembers slinking back to the kitchen to avoid ruining his good Gucci suit with the roses on.

Louis smiles, quick and sharpish, and Harry’s nostrils flare. He grabs the bottom of his chair as if to check for a Whoopee cushion or something; he can still tell when Louis’s lying, and he’s definitely got that look about him now. “Fantastic, great, yeah. Our staple acts are doing great business, we have two global arena tours coming up, and Little Mix is holding strong. Jade’s just had a baby, they’re going to take the squalling little thing on tour with them. Lungs just like his mom’s,” Louis adds.

Harry folds his hands together and rests his hands on them. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Fred dutifully unfold a napkin onto his lap. Rumour immediately puts his head back down in the little boy’s lap, and Fred strokes his soft ears, grinning when Rumour makes a soft attempt to nibble on his fingers. “Uh-huh.”

“What’s that about?” Louis asks, icicle-sharp.

“Oh, no, nothing,” Harry says immediately. He sits back in his seat and unfolds his napkin across his own lap. When he looks up, Louis has swallowed and settled against his seat. He looks more like the Louis that Harry remembers from the days of the band, when he’d had so much spiky brown hair and wore nothing but Adidas trainers.

He still remembers Louis and Niall calling him from backstage at the AMAs because they’d been locked out, and the way Louis punched his shoulder when the guard recognized that yeah, these were two members of One Direction. “Harry’s band,” the guard had called it. “Thanks, Harry,” Louis had said, bowing his head deferentially. It still rancors with him.

That’s not quite the Louis he sees here. Instead, he’s reminded of the Louis that they got after Zayn left. The one who had shots of himself holding a Tupperware of weed leak, and who went out and got piss-drunk at least twice a week. Who was too drunk to ask for NDAs, much less a condom, and then. Well.

Fred seems to have turned out alright, in any event, although his eyes are nothing like his dad’s. He looks up at Harry with a grin when Harry sneaks Rumour a bite of his breadstick under the table, Rumour rolling over onto his back so that Harry can drop it into his mouth, the lazy pup. Harry nods at him, and Fred nods back, in the easy way Louis once did. It makes Harry smile.

“I have an offer for you,” Harry says. “A four-piece act with a great track record. Five albums that went over really well, four global tours.”

“Sounds like a golden goose,” Louis says, most of his attention on the menu. “Where are they out of?”

“England,” Harry says. “And Ireland.”

Louis goes stiff when he realizes. “Harry…”

“Liam is already onboard,” Harry says, and backpedals quickly when Louis just casts his eyes down and starts biting his bottom lip. “And so am I. If we don’t do it now, then when?”

Louis clears his throat. “You and I both know I never really had the voice for – for the band.”

Harry leans forward on his elbows, clasping his hands together. He studies Louis’s face. He can smell the light tang of alcohol from Louis’s pores, and he’s clocked the way Louis has hidden his trembling hands under the table. His eyes are red-rimmed and sleepless. He’s maybe a little ruined, in the way that time ruins everything. It’s kind of fitting, in a terrible ironic way; they did so much living in such a small amount of time that now it’s catching up to him.

“I like your voice, Dad,” Fred says softly. “You always sang goodnight songs to us.”

Garden statues have moved more than Louis moves when he hears that. Then he goes so soft and warm, totally melting, his hand covering his son’s on the table.  

Things are complicated, Harry knows. He’ll have to tell the others about the mini bottle of vodka Louis slips out an inner pocket of his jacket and pours into his coffee, and it may be – problematic. But he really, really wants this. ‘S not quite himself without it, as a matter of fact. “Louis,” Harry starts. “You don’t have to say yes right away. Just think about it, alright? It could be almost like it was.”

“We’re too old,” Louis grins crookedly, pulling on his sleeves.

“I think we’re finally old enough,” Harry just answers. 

***

Liam rings Harry while he’s in the shower, so he lurches out dripping water all over the travertine tiles of his bathroom and picks up his phone. His fingers keep steaming up the screen, so he has to jab at it a few times to bump Liam to speaker. The Bluetooth system in his house picks up Liam’s call and plays it out all over the house so that Liam is like something from that old movie. My House is Alive, or something. Anyway, the house was evil.

Harry retreats into the shower to wash the shampoo out of his hair. “What do you want?”

“Where are you?” Liam asks, distracted as ever. “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking a shower,” Harry answers. “Why’d you –”

“You could’ve called me back,” Liam says equably.

Harry answers, “I didn’t know who it was, I thought it might’ve been important. Besides, it’s faster just to do both. What’s up?”

“Yeah, but now you’re talking to me in the shower,” Liam argues. “What if I needed you to do something like check your schedule?”

Harry counts to three in his head. “Liam,” he starts slowly, “why do I need to check my schedule?”

“If Louis’s onboard, then it’s only Niall that’s left,” Liam says. “You should go see him,” and Harry’s glad that Liam can’t hear the punched-out sound Harry makes behind the loud splatter of shower droplets against the floor.

His hair sticks to his cheeks and the back of his neck, but Harry’s hand still moves automatically to push his hair back like he needs to see clearly to think. “Okay,” he says slowly. “I know, you’re right.”

“You might call Aisling,” Liam suggests. “She’ll know when he’s free.”

Nothing has ever sounded quite as unappetizing as calling Niall’s wife to talk about Niall. Harry swallows hard. “Or,” he scrambles, “erm, or we could go see him do a show?”

“He does have dates coming up over here,” Liam says, and Harry can hear his desk chair wheels squeak as he must roll towards his computer. Harry’s not seen Liam’s home office setup except on Skype calls, but he rolls his eyes just thinking of it.

It’s so Liam, with three separate work stations pressed up against the wall, and life-size replica of Batman’s costume from the one with the guy who growled the whole movie in the corner.

Christ, Harry still remembers Liam debuting that ridiculous haircut he had for about two years straight, with the pomp in the front and his head shaven everywhere else. “It’s business in the front, party in the back,” he’d demonstrated, twisting around and flicking double finger guns like Zoolander.

“I live in a land of heathens and fools,” Sophia had rolled her eyes, running her long elegant fingers through Niall’s hair on her way by.

“Let’s see,” Liam says, his mouse wheel clicking as he scrolls. Christ, he’s such a grandpa sometimes. “There’s a couple of shows in Dublin and, oh, here we go, Hammersmith Odeon, three dates.”

Harry’s quiet for a moment. “Three dates at the Odeon, that’s –”

“He’s done quite well for himself,” Liam says, and there’s no mistaking the pride in his voice. “Shall I book you a ticket, then?”

“Come with me,” Harry says impulsively. He can’t imagine watching Niall on stage by himself, like he’s twenty-one again and watching the Moonlights struggle through their first few rehearsals. It might – jeez, he could throw up just thinking of it. Which is not, like, what you want to happen at one of your best mate’s shows. “And let’s make it a surprise,” he adds. “Yeah?”

Warmly, Liam says, “Sure, Haz,” and Harry can hear his mouse click as he loads the concert tickets into his cart and checks out. He probably still doesn’t know how to do his own laundry, but he’s a master of online shopping. Harry’s last few Christmas presents from Liam have been a remote control helicopter with a cup-holder on and virtual glasses for a video game. Harry doesn’t even know the last time he played video games. “They’re for two weeks. I’ll see you then?”

“I’ll call when my plane lands,” Harry promises.

This time, when he flies into London, he rents a car and drives himself to Liam’s house. Rumour sits upright in the front seat like he’s a proper person, and it makes Harry laugh. Rumour lets him buckle him in.

London hasn’t changed very much since he lived here with Louis almost ten years ago now, but it feels different, in some ways. Less like the wonderland he’d thought it was then, with Grimmy at his side and sometimes under his arm, holding him up after a night out. It feels more like visiting a previous version of himself than the thriving city where their careers kicked off.

Harry buzzes to be let in at Liam’s house, and the security gates swing back and let Harry pull his car into the driveway. He’s rented a vintage Aston Martin, and it’s quite beautiful, if he does say so himself. Maybe he’ll look into adding one of them to his collection.

Harry knocks twice on Liam’s door, and then Sophia pulls it open. She’s just as beautiful as ever she was, although not just in her face or her hair; she has that faintly expensive-smelling aura of a philanthropist about her, and Harry goes easily into her hug.

Sophia holds Harry out at arm’s length. “You look a mess,” she tells Harry, who scowls and laughs. Rumour’s toenails click on Liam’s marble floors as Harry’s dog pushes his way in, his tail and nose held high. Sophia bends to pet him, and Rumour licks her hands gratefully. “Watson is in the back garden if Rumour can go play with him.”

“Please,” Harry agrees, handing Sophia Rumour’s leash.

“And Liam is upstairs in our room, I think,” Sophia says. She drops her voice. “Try and cheer him up if you can, alright?” She rolls her eyes, smiling faintly, so Harry smiles back.

Harry’s not quite sure where Liam and Sophia’s bedroom is, so he takes a wander through Liam’s house. It’s three stories tall and each one is full of cavernous rooms for dinner parties, a pool table and foosball table, even an interior gym and spa room. It feels empty somehow. That’s why Harry had kept his little two-bedroom flat in TriBeCa, actually. Houses this big always feel like they should be full of children and laughter, and, well.

Harry finds Liam upstairs in what he guesses must be the master suite, if Liam’s stuff strewn around is any indication. He’s not as much of a slob as Louis always was, but he’s not as neat as Niall, either, so his four-post bed is littered with shirts he must’ve tried on and decided against, and the drawers of his wardrobe are open, ascots spilling out. His bed is unmade, and Harry can see his cream sheets and his stark white duvet.

“Mate?” Harry tries again. “You in here?” He pokes his head into the closet and finds Liam stood inside, holding the sleeve of a tattered black t-shirt to his nose. “Liam,” Harry says softly.

Liam’s eyes jump open and he drops the sleeve. He clears his throat. “Sorry. Oh, you’re here. Oh, good. I was just looking for, um, something I meant to give to you, and…”

Harry looks between the screen of the tablet Liam’s holding and his face, because looking at him uninterrupted for too long just hurts. He can see the live map of Liam’s security system, Harry’s car sending up red pricks of warning. Harry moves closer and puts his hand on Liam’s shoulder. “It’s alright, mate,” he says quietly. “I get it.”

He doesn’t tell Liam about the shower he can’t use because it reminds him too much of those weeks years ago, or about how he couldn’t even stay in LA after. He reckons it’s pretty obvious. And if it’s not, he’d rather not talk about it. Not when he has to be good to get the band back. That’s all he can have, so he’s going to be careful with it.

“Dunno why I’m being such a sap, it only smells like me,” Liam says anyway. He smiles, and it looks so sad. “I s’pose I missed you lads more than I’d like to admit.”  

“C’mon,” Harry says, looping his arm around Liam’s shoulders and guiding him out of the closet. Liam plops down on the bed, rubbing his hands over his face. “Is that what this mess was about?”  Harry asks.

Liam shakes his head. “No. No, d’you know, most of my old clothes don’t fit?” He stands up and holds a printed shirt to his chest. Harry vaguely remembers it from one televised appearance or another. One where it was cold outside, he thinks. “I’m old and fat.”

“You look great,” Harry disagrees. He pats Liam’s stomach fondly. “But we can go for a run tomorrow if you want to get fit for stage.”

“Stage shape,” Liam sighs dreamily. “Yeah, okay.”

“Let’s get,” Harry clears his throat, “let’s get everybody onboard first, though, right?”

Liam leaps to his feet. “Right, so,” he says, gesturing for Harry to follow him downstairs and into his study right off the entrance hall. “I’ve prepared a pitch for Niall, because you know he likes facts and stuff. I don’t know when Louis has an opening in his schedule, but I figure if you and I take on one last project before we switch gears, we can maybe be ready to start talking new album material in four months or so, which leaves, say, the summer for that. Although I suppose Louis will want to do that out of LA, and I don’t know that,” he looks sideways at Harry, “that anyone wants to spend so much time there.”

He pauses, staring down at the documents he’d put together. He’s more serious about the band than Harry knew. It warms his heart, just like Liam did in the early days, with a stick up his butt and that flat-ironed hair. Beyond annoying the shit out of him, of course. “I know that it’s been years, you know? But sometimes when I’m, you know, putting stuff like this together, I…I don’t know, I keep thinking there should be one more of us, yeah?”

Harry clears his throat. “Sorry, Liam.”

Liam waves his hand, and then he stands up from his chair and straightens the paper, clipping them into a tidy folder. He straightens the loose-leaf papers on his desk and lines up the pens to the edge of his keyboard. “Of course, obviously. Yeah.”

“Well,” Harry heaves a deep sigh. “What time should we leave, then?”

“We’re balcony seating,” Liam says, “so I figured we could sneak in when the lights were down.”

“Very sneaky,” Harry nods. “I like it. D’you want to play a round of foosball, then?”

Liam pumps both fists over his head. “Would I?” he laughs.

***

The house lights are already down when Liam and Harry make it into the Hammersmith Odeon. Harry stops on the street to take a picture of “Niall Horan and the Moonlights” on the marquee outside the theatre, and then he and Liam join the queue lined up in drizzling rain. The ticket-taker recognizes them, and her breath catches in her chest. Harry puts his hand on her shoulder just to make sure that she won’t faint, because that’s happened before.

Sometimes it’s a mistake to, like, touch his fans, because it can make the fainting thing worse. Harry’s still not sure how he feels about that. His job has been to make people happy, not – unwell. Then he catches sight of the posters of Niall on sale at the concessions booth just inside the doors, and, like. Maybe he gets it, in a way. How it’s possible to love someone or something so hard it doesn’t even make sense to yourself.

He clears his throat, ducking his head, and Liam leads them round the side of the theatre, to the stairs up to balcony seating. They edge along the front row of seats until they find their own, to the left of the stage from the performer’s point of view. The opening act is already tearing through their set, and Harry can hear their Irish accents even through the weird way that singing always levels out even the strongest of accents.

It’s a long, anxious thirty-minute wait when their set is done for the main act to come out. Harry keeps plucking at the hole in the knee of his jeans, a faded gray pair of Levis. He had very deliberately not thought too hard about what he was wearing when he boarded the plane for this show, so naturally he looks like he dressed himself in the dark.

He’s wearing a black button-up and his favorite cowl-necked Gucci jumper and a pair of tattered Doc Martens, and it’s never hit him quite so hard before how strange his silk collar must seem against his combat boots. Oh, God. Even his skin feels too tight and uncomfortable.

Nobody’s even looking at him. It’s not like Niall will be able to see him when the lights go back down and – and the lights dim.

Harry holds his breath as the crowd roars their approval, and then Niall and his band take the stage. The musicians fan out, and Niall picks his way across the stage and selects a guitar from the wheelie rack just to the side of the stage. He puts the strap over his head, and a hush falls over the crowd like the one that falls over the congregation of a church.

Then Niall steps into the spotlight on the microphone at the front of the stage. He strokes a chord and on the next beat, the band breaks into song all at once. Niall starts singing, his voice as clear as a bell, and they’re off like the gunshot at the start of a race.

Harry finds himself leaning forward in his seat, the only thing keeping him seated his grip on the arms of his chair. He’d thought he might not be able to handle seeing him, or hearing him, and certainly not both at the same time; he’d even taken the precaution of picking out the nearest loo he could hide in for the remainder of the show. He’s surprised to find he doesn’t need to.

Something happens when a live band hits their groove and everything gels between them on stage; Harry would recognize it even if he weren’t a musician, he thinks, watching the crowd in the pit beneath him throw shapes. It’s one of his favorite views in the world, although he’s still used to looking at it from the stage: a crowd full of happy people dancing with no self-consciousness.

Harry’s feet tap out an erratic beat on the worn floorboards beneath his seat, and he keeps hunching lower or straightening up in his chair to see past the protective railing at the edge of the balcony. He wants to watch Niall’s hands on the strings and his face and his feet and every other musician on stage at the same time.

They blaze through their staple covers, songs that they started working with at the Olympic in LA, and it doesn’t hurt as bad as Harry expects when Niall delivers the ringing high notes of “Blackbird.” It’s still devastating, but it’s survivable. He hadn’t known that would be the case.

Their set is long, too, and fast-paced, without piddling much time away drinking water and cracking questionable jokes. It makes Harry nostalgic for their own very early tours, and how much time they spent making fools of themselves for the fans. It’s a different kind of show, though, and these aren’t children.

Spotlights rove over the crowd. Harry doesn’t think anything of it until Niall glances up, and then it’s like he can feel his eyes on him as a physical weight, like Niall’s arm around his waist. He tenses in his seat, but Niall just looks away and gets on with an original song.

Harry breathes out, thinking that’s the end of it, until the final song before the encore. “I’d like to dedicate this next track,” Niall says, the corners of his mouth curling up in a smile he might’ve lifted straight off of Louis, “to some very good, very old friends.”

He clears his throat, and then he sidles back up to the mic like a gunslinger in a western. He turns and mouths something to his bandmates, and then he starts singing: “ _So you’re a little bit older and a lot less bolder than you used to be,_ ” and Harry laughs, slumping in his seat. This fucker and Bob Seger. He's waited till now to bust out a harmonica - maybe even the one Harry gave him all that time ago; he can't be sure from here. 

Harry puts his face in his hands while Niall drives them through the first verse, and then he and Liam start clapping when they get to “ _You get to feeling weary,_ ” the audience acting as the band’s own extended percussion section. It’s one of Harry’s favorite things, the audience all making the music together.

The whole room sings along at the end of the song, “ _So you can come back baby, rock ‘n’ roll never forgets!_ ” the band’s set ending on a chorus so loud it feels like the room might be shaking down around them.

Harry applauds as loud as anyone. The band returns for a three-song encore but they’ve already hit their high; everything after just feels like a celebration, like eating ice cream after sex. Harry pops out of his seat and wolf whistles when the house lights come back on and the band leaves the stage, and this time, when Niall looks up at him and Liam, Harry knows he sees them.

He waves, smiling huge, and Niall waves back. It feels, well. He hadn’t known he’d been missing something until he saw him again, and now it’s like something inside of him has slotted into place.     

***

Niall meets them backstage, his hairline and shirt damp with sweat. He’s just wearing a white t-shirt, his denim button-up tossed to the side, and Liam goes straight in for a hug. He nuzzles Niall’s sweaty hair and presses a smacking kiss to Niall’s cheek, and Niall just pinks up and laughs along with it. Jesus, it’s good to see him again.

It’d be silly for Harry to shake his hand or nod or not do anything at all; they’ve known each other too long for that. So he hugs Niall instead, and he still feels every bit as good as he always has, whether they were kissing or not. He takes a deep whiff of him, smelling the cologne Harry almost bought Des for Christmas and the sweet and sour tang of his sweat and something else, that Niall-smell like cinnamon and caramel apples.

His hair is so short and dark now, and his eyes look so blue. The wedding ring on his fourth finger glimmers a dull silver. Niall takes a step back when Harry releases him, and he looks Liam and Harry over intently. “Well,” he grins, “what did you boys think of the show?”

“I loved the shoutout!” Liam laughs, aiming a light punch at Niall’s shoulder. “I don’t know that we were ever rock and roll, though. Except maybe ‘Where Do Broken Hearts Go.’”

“Ah,” Niall waves his hand dismissively, “we’re living legends, you know. That’s the most rock and roll you can be.” He winks at Harry, and Harry smiles back instinctively, his heart sinking. He can’t stop looking at Niall’s face and the freckles trailing down his throat and the veins in his hands and the way his fingers keep curling and uncurling and picking at his cuticles.

“Come meet the band,” Niall urges them, so they follow him back to their dressing rooms, where the Moonlights and some of their friends and family are sat around on couches, excitedly bantering. It reminds Harry of the family they built over four One Direction tours, Sarah and the kitchen crew and Caroline and Lou and later, Lottie, from the design team. It’s no surprise that Niall’s managed to form ties like these. He’d have to, what with swapping out band members at every show. Harry remembers Niall learning how to juggle the logistics of a rotating line-up in his house in LA, and then he shuts down that line of thought right quick.

Harry squeezes himself into the open seat beside Colm Mac Con Iomaire, who introduces himself to Harry with a calloused handshake. They drink the Guinness that the Moonlights always put on their rider and tell stories until well after Harry’s usual bedtime, although maybe it’s only jetlag setting in. He slides down his seat a little bit after telling about the time he and Grimmy and that lot snuck onto the Tube and into Piccadilly Circus to do a kerb-side gig, and no one ever knew it was him.

Half-drunk, and warm with Colm to his left, Harry lets himself watch Niall. Liam leans excitedly over his lap to tell something to Florence Welch, who’s so like a fairy that Harry’s a little bit afraid to look at her, and Niall just leans back to make more room. He doesn’t look like he’s aged a bit, which Harry should’ve expected. His shoulders are broad and the muscles in his arms defined, and Harry knows beyond a doubt that he’s still in love with him.

He folds his hands together in his lap and studies the rings on his fingers. He should get one for this, Harry thinks suddenly. A reminder he can look at when he’s misbehaving, so to speak. Maybe something with _you can’t be in love with your best friend anymore_ on it, just so that he’ll remember. He takes a deep breath.

For the band. He can have the band back, maybe. The way he feels, it’s not that big a deal. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. And it’ll be worth it, in the end.

When Harry looks up, Niall’s eyes are on him. Harry manages a smile, and Niall grins crookedly back. Harry’s heart gives a drunken lurch, the traitorous bastard. He makes himself look away, turning instead to strike up a conversation with Florence about her flared trousers.

A couple of hours after midnight, people start to head home. Liam and Harry edge up to Niall. “Are you busy tomorrow?” Liam asks casually. “Want to come to mine for lunch?”

“Why don’t you lads come to mine?” Niall asks, hefting his guitar case. He tugs a hunting cap down over his hair, and Harry’s fingers itch to tuck his flyaway hair in. “I’ll grill something for us, if you like.”

“That’d be great,” Harry smiles. He wants to mean it. He feels like he can, if he tries hard enough.

Niall snaps him an almost surprised look, and then he nods quickly. “Great.” He ushers them into one hug, all their heads knocking together like cue balls on the pool table. They’ll need to practice that move a bit. “Can’t wait, boys,” he smiles.

Harry lets Liam drive them back to his place. He runs his fingers along the handle on the door of the car, feeling the leather under his fingertips.

“You okay?” Liam asks, glancing over at him. “You’re quiet.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, curling his fingers into a fist. “I’m just excited. It’s going to be great.”

It’s going to be worth it. Even if it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.

***

Harry stamps his feet on Niall’s porch the next day, trying to keep warm. Rumour leans into his knee, blinking dolefully at the door. It’s early for him, the poor pup. Harry pats his head absently. Liam takes his finger off the doorbell and puts them back in his pockets. “It’s cold,” Harry says stubbornly.

Liam rolls his eyes. “It’s not cold, you’re just used to LA. It’s not that cold here right now.”

Harry deliberately exhales so that his breath leaves him in twin steam trails like dragon smoke. He raises an eyebrow at Liam.

“It’s not that cold for the end of November,” Liam corrects himself. Harry just shakes his head. 

The door swings open, and Niall grins at them. “Sorry to keep you waiting, boys. C’mon in.”

“Good lad,” Liam says, stopping on his way into the house to sweep Niall into a hug. He starts wiping off his boots on the doormat just inside the door.

Harry stares past him, into the house. They turned the dimly lit room to the left into a home office, just like Harry thought he might, with a handful of guitars on the wall. A staircase just past the foyer leads up to the second floor, and someone has already gone and wrapped garland and fairy-lights around the banister. Harry catches sight of a sprig of holly above the office doorway and makes a mental note to stay far, far away.

The kitchen lies to the right, and Harry can smell coffee percolating and garlic rub and something green, maybe asparagus, baking in the oven. Even though the golden light of summer is long behind them, Niall’s house still seems warm and inviting; the chestnut floors are spotless, and Harry would bet his left arm that the fern growing in a planter in the entryway thrives under Niall’s care.

It’s just that he thought, once, that someday, maybe – but that’s behind them now. He clears his throat and smiles at Niall. “You look cold,” Niall observes, ushering Harry over the threshold. Then, “Rumour?” he laughs.

Harry’s dog perks up his ears, his tail hesitantly beginning to wag, and then he takes a whiff of Niall’s jeans. His tail starts wagging in earnest and he starts nosing all up into Niall’s space like he always does Harry when Harry goes away for a weekend, his little doggy chest making this sweet rumbling sound like a growl of approval.

Niall beams, leaning down to run his hands all through Rumour’s fur. He takes the pup’s face between his hands and kisses the side of his nose, and it hurts, for some stupid reason. Harry grins like an idiot.

“Come in,” Niall repeats, so Harry takes a deep breath and steps in. Niall leads them back to the kitchen, where he washes his hands and then sets about carefully retrieving a set of steaks from the Ziplocs they’ve been marinating in. He puts each into a greased glass pan and then rolls them in flour, his dad’s “family secret.” Rumour keeps trying to lie down on Niall’s feet, but Niall won’t stop moving around, so eventually Harry’s dog parks himself in the corner of the kitchen and tracks Niall’s every move.

Harry remembers clattering into Bobby’s house that weekend in Mullingar to find him doing the very same thing, and it’s striking, suddenly, how similar they look. How familiar this is. They were such little kids then, but Harry remembers the rush of busking on a streetcorner with Niall and Holly for a laugh and the surge of freedom for traveling to a foreign country and taking the train with his new mates to Dublin. It’s as close as he’s ever gotten to the feeling of being on stage without actually performing.

“Good to see you boys again, especially together, I – What,” he starts laughing, “Liam, what are you wearing?”

“What?” Liam asks, pulling on the front of his patterned jumper. He drapes his coat over the back of a kitchen chair. “It’s a jumper, it’s cold – it’s not _that_ cold outside, but it was a bit brisk. It’s just a jumper.”

“Liam, love, it’s got a vagina on,” Niall says, prodding at Liam to turn around so Niall can see the backside of it. “Harry, you didn’t warn him?”

Harry throws up his hands. “I tried!”

“It’s artistic,” Liam insists. “Like them flowers. Georgia O’Keefe. What?” he asks, looking between Niall and Harry, who’s struggling not to laugh. “It’s art!”

“Those flowers were a metaphor for vaginas, and you’ve got a great big vagina on your chest,” Niall says. “It’s honestly – I kind of can’t look away from it.” A shadow crosses his face and his smile drops, just for a second, and then he hitches it back up again like all those times he’d be pulling his skinny jeans up around his hips. “Really, mate. If the missus were here, you’d be in trouble.”

So Liam rolls his eyes and sets about tugging his jumper off his head to reveal a plain white t-shirt beneath his jumper.

“Where is Aisling, anyway?” Harry asks. He psyched himself to see her in the car on the way here, and he wants to know if he can chill out before she catches him off-guard.

He brought along a hostess gift just to be polite, although if he’d known it was only Niall they were dealing with, he might not have bothered. He passes the wine bottle over to Niall anyway, who says, “Can you put it on the wine rack for me? Unless you want to open it now, but I’ve got Stella in the fridge.”

Harry starts to ask him where his wine rack is, and then he thinks about prowling around Niall’s pantry looking for a good spot years ago, so he follows his hunch. He hadn’t – they weren’t, like, they were just friends again by the time Niall must’ve had this put in, but something about the fact that he took Harry’s suggestion and put the stupid wine rack where he thought it’d have been best makes him so angry that he wants to cry.

He remembers the last time he’d cried about all the things he lost that he hadn’t ever really had. Maybe that’s the worst part, that Niall had never been his. He’s still struggling with it, to be honest. One ordinary day when Harry was organizing the massive collection of snapshots from his 8mm camera, Niall rang him. It was cold outside, like it is now, and he’d still been putting his New York flat together the way he wanted it.

“I’m getting married,” Niall had called to say. It wasn’t unusual by then to go three or four months without talking. He could hear Niall’s songs on the radio or see his face on the telly, and Harry could usually tell by how much he fidgeted with the bit of hair behind his ear how stressed out he was, if he was okay. He’d seemed good.

The last time they’d seen each other was for Louis’s New Year’s party a couple of years ago, which feels so long ago now that Harry almost can’t believe it. Liam had worn a cream suit with a light pink waistcoat to match Sophia, and Niall’s hair was fully brown; he smelled like Hugo Boss and breath mints. Sometimes Harry still gets a whiff of his smell from the sheets, although he knows it’s only his memory playing tricks on him.

“I want you to come to the wedding,” Niall said.

“You’re sure that’s a good idea?” Harry scrambled. “What with – us?”

Softly, Niall said, “I told her it wasn’t real. That it was just pretend.”

A breaking heart should have a sound, Harry remembers thinking. Like a penny dropping or a ream of paper being ripped in two. Something audible, or tangible. Instead, he just had ringing silence. “Maybe,” Harry said, his lips numb. “I’ll have to check my schedule.”

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Niall went on, and Harry was so desperately glad he didn’t have to see his face. His voice sounded so small, for once, and it hit Harry as it always but rarely does how hard Niall had to work to be vulnerable with him. “But you’re my best friend. I want my best friend to be there.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to cry the whole time,” Harry had admitted, his voice breaking halfway through.

Niall took a sharp breath. “Oh, Harry,” Niall mumbled. “I thought you’d started to move on, too.”

He dated, sure, but he’d never intended to _marry_ any of those girls. He’d just been killing time, really, waiting. Still waiting to get the timing right, only it looks like that’s not ever going to happen.

But he wasn’t not supposed to be making this about himself. His – one of his very best friends fell in love and was getting married. He owed it to Niall to be happy for him. Seven years of friendship: he owed him that much. Seven years. Making music and touring and doing promo, and all the stuff between, watching films and sharing food and learning how he liked his tea.

And after all that, he hadn’t expected to learn that a huge part of growing up is learning how not to cry in front of other people for their sakes. “Okay,” Harry said instead, sniffing hard. “No, no, no, it’s okay, it’s okay. I’m coming, I’ll come. When is it? I’ll mark it down now so I’ll be sure to have the time off.”

“You really don’t have to,” Niall says softly. “If it’d be too hard for you, Harry.”

“It’s just,” he’d started quietly, stopped. _You were supposed to be_ my _someday._ He can’t make himself say the words aloud. Ironic, that after all those years of not being able to tell Niall that he _did_ want him, he just wasn’t ready, that he couldn’t tell Niall on the phone that ordinary, boring day, _You’re mine_. It feels like a fitting punishment.

To his credit, he hadn’t cried until he’d gotten in the car to go home. Niall hurried after him, caught him just before he sped off. Christ, Harry’s still not sure whether he’s happy he didn’t make it. “Thank you,” Niall said. “For being here. I couldn’t have done it without you, I don’t think.”

“Anytime,” Harry replied, like an idiot. “I love you.”

 _Nobody loves me the way you do,_ he remembered Niall saying. Jesus, he’d hoped Niall still knew that. Niall’s whole face softened, his eyes almost dreamlike, like he gets sometimes with fans when he can’t believe his luck.

And that, well. That’s the last time Harry had seen him, until now. Niall and the stupid fucking wine rack Harry wanted in this house he loved and Niall’s wife. He puts the wine bottle in the rack and stalks out of the pantry, closing the door firmly behind him.

“You okay, mate?” Liam asks, one foot out the backdoor, Niall ahead of him with the tray of steaks. He can see Rumour in the distance, sniffing all along Niall’s fence for the edges of his territory.

“Fine,” Harry grunts. “Just getting a drink. You want anything?”

“Yeah, get us a couple of those Stellas,” Liam says, his voice coming out muffled halfway through as the door shuts behind him. Harry stands still for a long ten seconds, counting his breaths in his head. Then he pulls the beers from the fridge and follows the other two outside, where they’re standing over Niall’s fancy, expensive grill. That’s about all Harry knows about it, although he’s sure Niall would be able to rattle off optimal cooking temperature and grill lifespan and all that sort of thing.

Liam folds his arms across his chest and huddles close to the grill for warmth. Niall prods the white hot coals with an iron rod, nods to himself, and slaps the steaks on the grill. “I wasn’t sure if you were still doing the vegetarian thing, so I made a black bean patty just in case,” Niall tells Harry.

Harry twists the cap of his beer off with the bottom of his jumper and swallows half of it in one gulp. He always forgets how terrible beer is on the first pull, and he heaves a sigh, but he feels better out here in the cold than in Niall’s house. “I don’t, but thanks.”

“What happened?” Niall asks politely. “You got tired of eating nothing but eggs and kale all the time?”

Harry laughs. “No, I, uh. It’s, Gemma’s having a baby and I’m teaching Brian how to cook. So just, um, looking ahead. You know how kids are, if they offer you food it’s, like, the ultimate gift.”

Niall nods. “I remember you covered in maple syrup thanks to Lux more than a few times, yeah. Sweet of you.”

“Yeah, so. Can’t reject an innocent little baby,” Harry shrugs.

“When’s she due?” Liam asks.

Harry sniffs, trying to wipe his nose on his collar without digging his hands out of his pockets. “Just a couple of weeks. I’m going home in a few days, but I’ll fly back sometime next week, I think.”

“So you’ll be in town till the baby comes?” Niall asks, looking up interestedly.

It hadn’t occurred to Harry that staying for Gemma and Brian also meant staying near Niall and Liam, but, “Uh, yeah,” he says.

“We should go for a round of golf sometime,” Niall suggests, raising his eyebrows hopefully. Niall’s eyebrows are still a shade lighter than his hair, and his cheeks are already turning pink from the cold. He looks silly, Harry tells himself. Not handsome, not sweet as a candied apple. Harry thinks of the imaginary ring on his finger reminding him so, and he heaves a sigh.

“Absolutely, whenever you want,” he says, and he can’t stop himself smiling back when Niall beams.  “Payno can come too,” Harry adds, slinging an arm around his neck. “So long as he doesn’t bring the vagina jumper.”

“Could be useful,” Niall parries, closing the lid on the grill. The steaks sizzle as they cook and they smell amazing, like all of Harry’s favorite spices. “You know, keep you distracted so he wins the game.”

Harry fakes a gasp of horror. “That’s dastardly, Liam.”

“It’s a flower,” Liam whines, grabbing Niall and reeling him in, too, so they’re smushed together in a three-way hug. Niall’s hair is soft against the side of Harry’s face, and he concentrates on Liam’s tea-flavored breath. “Arseholes,” Liam says fondly. Rumour trots over and sniffs at their feet as if to check that they’re alright.

“No offense,” Niall starts, “but if you two are planning to ask me to rejoin the band, get on with it, already. Waiting for you to ask is killing me.”

Liam lets them both go, and he and Harry stare at Niall. “Is that a yes?” Liam asks, his voice so soft and low and hopeful that it reminds Harry a bit of a sandcastle. No matter how old he gets, he still thinks he can build one to last.

“I’ll have to talk to Ed,” Niall warns them, and then he cracks a grin. “But yeah, I’m onboard.” Liam sweeps them all back up into a hug, and they jump around in a clumsy circle. Harry feels so happy he could cry, or sing.

The steaks only take another thirty minutes to cook, Niall treated them so well, and they carry them inside and eat steak and asparagus and the extra-fatty ice cream with the chunks of candy in. Then Niall shows them to his home studio, where he’s got a recording booth about the same size as Harry’s in New York, and a wide selection of guitars.

“We’ll have to write a new album,” Liam thinks aloud, running his fingers lightly over the guitar strings so that they hum.

“I’ve been setting aside songs for us since the break started,” Harry volunteers, plucking Niall’s favorite acoustic guitar off the floor. Niall sits beside him on the piano bench, playing the keys one at a time.

“Me, too,” he agrees, and they laugh when Liam says the same. “We’ll probably have too many songs,” Niall points out. “Could do a double album.”

Liam stills, looking at Harry. “We’ve got, like, a bucket list,” Liam tells Niall, and of course he’s brought it with him, tucked inside his wallet next to a condom and a family portrait of the Paynes. “Could add that to the list.”

“We’ll need a band,” Niall says, “and tour crew, a tour manager.” Niall’s eyes glaze over a bit, and Harry knows he’s remembering the names of dozens of crew members. He’s sure that Niall will be ringing up as many of them as he can to rejoin the circus.

It knocks Harry off-kilter, the thought of rejoining the One Direction circus. The whole of it, striped tent and all, blowing back into town and taking him with it. They may not have giraffes or elephants or acrobats, but they’ve got an army of personnel, and it feels the same. Like catching a speeding train somewhere, anywhere, and not wanting to get off.

Niall catches Harry’s eye, and it’s like they share a brain, the way Harry instantly knows what he’s thinking. “We always did say he was the sixth member of One Direction.”

“Who?” Liam asks, his brow furrowing.

“Paul,” Harry answers. There’s an almost-awkward silence as Harry, anyway, remembers why he left. He wonders if he’ll come back.

“How soon can Louis get out here? Is he coming back for Christmas?” Niall asks, getting up to fetch his iPad so they can sync up their schedules. He has eight tour dates left in the UK and Europe, and then he’s done except for a promo thing for New Year’s in Ireland, and Harry just has to put the finishing touches on Eryn Allen’s album.

Harry bites his lip and wonders how much to say. He starts, haltingly, with, “I’ll have to check with him. He – I think things are quite complicated with him.” He strums a G minor, and Niall cocks his head, as if to let the note drop into his ear. “Well, anyway. You know how he is.”

“He gets papped a lot,” Niall voices lowly. “That’s what you mean?”

Harry just hums, stroking the strings. It’s nice to have two of his lads at his side again, Niall’s soft humming and Liam’s fingers tap-tapping on Niall’s iPad. It feels a lot like going home. “I’ll talk to him when I go back to the States in a few days,” Harry promises them. Maybe he’ll redirect his travel plans, go to LA straightaway instead of New York.

“I’ll try talking to Paul,” Niall offers. “I’m going back to Ireland for the holidays.”

Something about the way he said that rancors, but Harry can’t figure out what it is. Instead, he says, “Oh, Theo must be so big now!”

“Yeah, here, I’ve got pictures for you,” Niall says, rising from his seat just long enough to pluck the sleeve of photographs off his desk. “Look.”

Harry shakes the pictures out onto his hand, and then he starts flipping through them. Jesus, Theo is _gigantic_ now. There are shots of him midair on the trampoline in Greg’s and Denise’s back garden, his darkening hair in a halo around his head, and pictures of him on his first and last day of first grade, and him showing the camera his Pokemon team, a beaming smile on his face. In the last photo, Theo is sat on Niall’s shoulders, his skinny legs draped over Niall’s shoulders. Niall’s face is twisted up to talk to him, but Theo is positively cheesing at the camera.

“He looks like you,” Harry says absently, and he doesn’t miss the way Niall tenses, sitting back in his seat so that he’s not poring over the pictures with Harry. Rumour doesn’t miss it, either, trotting over to put his head on Niall’s knee. “Rumour likes you,” Harry says, although that must be obvious. “I guess he must, like. Remember you.”

Niall whistles a tune, short and sweet, and Liam says, “Oh, yeah, I forgot Niall got him for you.”

“Birthday present,” Niall adds, his voice soft. Strange, how that’ll be the whole story. In reality, Rumour was something of an apology present, too. Maybe it’s better that Niall left it so simple.

They spend the better part of the afternoon sat on the enormous leather couch in Niall’s living room watching a match, and then Niall sees them out so that he can “tidy up before the wife brains me.”

“We’ll see each other again soon, right?” Niall checks. “We’ll be in touch.”

“‘Course,” Liam says, leaning in to kiss Niall’s cheek, the cheeky lad. Harry gets away with just a fist bump, Niall’s wedding ring a solid, undeniable hardness against Harry’s knuckles.     

***

Harry decides to pay a visit to Anne and Robin before he flies back to the states for two weeks – he’ll be home in time for Gemma’s baby and the holidays – because lately it’s like he never sees them at all. His mum has gotten weirdly busy in her age as if she’s got to make up for the clock running short, which is obviously ridiculous as Harry’s mum is ageless and will therefore live forever.

Still. Harry tries to be a good son and pay an extra special amount of attention when he can. He picks up one of his cars from the garage that stores them and keeps them in good shape. Since he’s going home, he goes for the electric Tesla. Better to be environmentally-friendly, and all that. He tosses his duffel bag into the backseat, buckles Rumour into the front, and they’re off.

There’s nothing quite like a motorcycle road trip, but Harry appreciates the chance to spend a leisurely day on the M-40. A train is faster, of course, and even more environmentally friendly than his car, but it’s still not quite safe for him to take public transport. That’s the weird thing about being this, like, recognizable. People think it means you can do anything when in reality, it means there’s a lot of things you can’t do.

Anyway. He’s used to it by now. Mostly.

He rolls down the window and lets Rumour hang his head out over the side of the car when he hits green space and a whole lot of nothing on either side of the road, blasting Troye Sivan’s latest album as high as it’ll go. He screams along the lyrics even though he hasn’t got half a clue what the boy is saying, and his cheeks are sore from smiling by the end of the ride.

Harry pulls into the driveway at his mum’s house and turns the car off, listening for the engine to pop as it cools. Of course it doesn’t. Instead, he hears Rumour’s panting breaths and the soft, high whine he makes in the back of his throat when Harry sits looking at him for a moment too long. “Right, well, let’s go see Grandma, shall we?” Harry grins.

Rumour trots along at his side up to the door, where Harry rings the bell. Robin opens it just a few seconds later, and he pulls Harry into a tight hug. Robin has more mass than he used to, and it makes Harry think of Liam calling himself “fat” like their fans did, and how ridiculous it was. Like it wasn’t okay to grow up, or something. “Forever Young” was just a song, after all.

Robin shows Harry into the house, where his mum is cooking lunch in the kitchen. She’s taking a sip of soup from a ladle when Harry walks in, and she smiles wide and puts the ladle aside on the stovetop to bustle over and pull Harry into a tight hug. She smells like her usual flowery perfume, and gingerbread, and Harry buries his nose in her hair and breathes deep.

“My big boy,” Anne croons, letting him go. She looks Harry up and down approvingly. “You look so good.”

“I am good,” Harry smiles. “I’m really good.”

Anne pauses just for a second. “You’ve seen the boys lately, haven’t you?”

“The boys” could mean any of his old school mates or any of the laddy friends he’s made since leaving school, but it always, always means the guys from the band. Harry cocks his head. “How’d you know?”

“Because you look good,” Anne says, as if that explains it.

“I’m getting the band back together,” Harry admits, nervously running his palm over the edge of her granite counter. It’s the first time he’s said it aloud to anyone other than one of the boys, and it makes him break out in an instant sweat. Not that he doesn’t want it – he does, God, he wants this more than almost anything – but because it’s so much to ask for. It’s his whole life.

He hasn’t been blind to the fact that he’s been able to attend Anne’s every birthday, seen his little cousins graduate from primary and then secondary school, and watch a match with Des from halfway across the world on Skype because he hasn’t had to work the way he used to.

Anne folds her arms across her chest, her fingers nervously curling around her biceps, and Harry doesn’t know what to do. He can’t say sorry – it wouldn’t be true, he’s _not_ sorry. Maybe he’s a spoiled brat, but he’d give it all up: the birthdays and the weddings and the ordinary tea times just for the chance to go out on stage one more time with his best mates.

He’d thought he might’ve been wrong, once. He’d written “ _I think I might give up everything, just ask me to_ ,” about the day Harry’s nan had died and he hadn’t known till ages and ages after it happened, because his mum couldn’t reach him. It was an important day. They were filming for those car commercials and Zayn had started talking about leaving and Niall and Louis kept trying to pelt him with those bouncy balls.

God. Ages ago, that feels like. Julian looking at him with those sweet basset hound eyes of his and asking, quite simply, if he meant it.

“Yeah,” Harry remembers saying. “But she wouldn’t ask.”

And still, his mum won’t ask him to do that. She offers him a smile. “I’m going to miss you,” she says, and Harry smiles at her the same way she’s smiling at him: a little as if it hurts.

“It’s not a done deal,” Harry says, and his mum loops her arm around his waist, holding him to her side while she goes back to stirring the soup. She leans her head into his chest and Harry squeezes her shoulder, smiling at Robin when he glances over his shoulder. Robin drops his phone, sure to have been taking a picture, and nods at him.

Anne just clucks. “Here, taste this for me. Tell me what you think.”

“Needs more arugula,” Harry says, same as he’s been saying every time she makes him taste something for the past ten years, since he learned the word from one of those Frog and Toad books.

Anne squeezes Harry’s hip. “I’m sure the boys need you as much as you need them. Now, do you really think garlic salt or sea salt?”

Harry smacks his lips. “Garlic salt, I reckon,” so Anne lets him go to fetch the bottle from the cabinet.

After lunch, Anne makes Harry help her clear out the spare bedroom she’s been using as storage for Harry paraphernalia from his years in the band. She has newspaper clippings and online articles printed out and filed away into proper scrapbooks, and editions of every terrible book One Direction put out, and the official t-shirt from every tour.

“I don’t know what I’m meant to do with it, it’s like a shrine to me,” Harry says mildly, picking through his mum’s carefully curated museum.

“Could give it to Niall,” his mum comments absently, shifting through heaps of One Direction tour books and several commemorative jerseys. “Speaking of which, I think I found something of his.” She turns and rustles through the desk drawer in the other guest room for a moment, so Harry drags that first book they ever “wrote” into his lap.

Of course they hardly wrote it at all, mostly they just sat and gave interviews that someone transcribed. And even then, they had publicists and managers in the room with them, making sure they didn’t say anything too racy.

They were all worried when Zayn went rogue that he’d want to set the record straight on so many things, but he never did, really. Just his own record. Harry knows Louis thinks it’s because Zayn didn’t reckon them relevant enough to bother with and that Niall wants to think about Zayn about as much as Zayn wants to think about them, but like Liam, Harry’s not sure.

He thinks maybe it’s just that there’s so much history. It’s never really made sense if it’s just Harry’s story alone that he’s trying to tell. He doesn’t have much of a story without the other lads, really. He was just a boy from a village in England.

Anne returns from across the hall holding a small blue box in her hand. “Here,” she says. “I figured this must’ve wound up in your case by accident when you boys were on break from tour.”

“What is it?” Harry asks idly, taking the box. It looks vaguely familiar, in the sense that he’s seen a blue box before. Not so much that he actually remembers. He flips the lid and finds a ring inside, the silver slightly oxidized from time, and scraped a little on the side, like the original owner might’ve tripped one day or missed a step while holding onto a banister. That kind of thing. He recognizes it immediately.

“Someday, maybe,” he remembers Niall murmuring to him, their heads on the same small pillow in Niall’s tiny childhood bedroom with the Rams poster on the wall. Niall smiled, his teeth crooked then, not yet made superstar pretty. “When we’re ready.”

Harry’s heart clenches just to think of it. He can remember it so clearly. Niall bought him an actual promise ring from the secondhand shop up the road when they were poking around at the battered guitars and accordians for a laugh with Holly before they took the train to Dublin.

“Isn’t that meant to be for me?” Holly laughed, when Niall handed Harry the box. No pomp or circumstance, just, “Here. ‘Cos I meant it.”

Niall laughed. “You’ll get yours when you stop telling people that I’m Conor McGregor’s little brother.”

Harry hadn’t worn rings then and it didn’t feel like something he should wear, anyway; if it was a promise, then it was one between them, and anyway…Harry doesn’t know. He just remembers coming home from that trip in Ireland and telling his sister, “I’m going to love it.”

The ring doesn’t fit on his middle finger anymore, his hands have grown so, but it fits on his ring finger. Anne goes quiet, letting Harry fuss with the ring until he’s shuffled the normal set around the way he likes.

He’s not thinking when he puts it on; maybe if he was, he wouldn’t do it. But he could use a reminder. And it’s not like – it’s not like Niall broke his promise, exactly. They did some amazing stuff together. So, like. Maybe that’s what this means.

Anyway. Harry puts the ring on. And it stays there on his hand for a long, long time.

“Sweet,” Anne just says, ruffling Harry’s curls. “Now, where do you want the life-size cutouts of you and the boys?”

“You have those?” Harry asks, wrinkling his nose, and gets up to look after them.

***

Louis forgets that he’s got a meeting with Harry. Harry knows, because he sat waiting in the restaurant for about an hour and a half until the _maître d'_ runs out of patience and politely but firmly asked him to leave. They scheduled their meeting in Louis’s hotel, because he’d come to New York on business while Harry was home before going back for Gemma’s baby.

“Excuse me,” Harry asks the concierge, gripping the edge of the concierge’s desk. The desk comes up the middle of his chest, which is one of those weird things he’s never quite understood about expensive hotels. Like the better the hotel is, the taller the desk should be. What’s the point of it? He still eyeballs the desk for a jar of mints. “I had a meeting with a guest, could I please – d’you think I could please have his room number, instead?”

The concierge glances up, bored, then looks back at his computer screen. Then he does a double take. “Har –” he starts. “Are you Harry Styles? From One Direction?”

Harry smiles. “That’s me. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he thrusts his hand over the top of the stupidly tall desk. The concierge takes his hand with an awestruck expression on his face. “Lee,” he mumbles. “Is it okay if I hug you?”

“Sure,” Harry laughs, because this is the part he never got tired of. Well, one of the parts. The main part, really.

Lee’s head only comes up to Harry’s shoulder, he’s such a little guy, but he squeezes Harry as tight as he possibly can. “Sorry,” he says, “it’s just, I grew up with you, like.”

Harry pats him on the back, struggling for breath. “It’s okay,” Harry just says. “Thank you.”

The concierge, Lee, pulls away. He rubs at his eyes, his voice a little froggy. “Is it okay if I say I love you?”

“No,” Harry jokes. “That’s going too far, sorry.”

Lee laughs, so Harry pats his shoulder until his eyes are less misty. “What can I help you with, Harry?”

“I’m trying to find my friend,” Harry says. And then, because their fans were always so knowledgeable, “it’s Louis, actually. He was meant to meet me, but I was wondering if I could have his room number, instead?”

“Sure,” Lee says immediately. “If it was anybody else, but – since it’s you.” He glances up at Harry with a curious expression while he searches Louis’s name in the hotel’s database.

Harry says, “If you wouldn’t mind, could you please not post anything about this until – well, maybe ever, if that’s okay? Or, just not for a few days?” He wonders what Louis will say if he finds out about Harry recruiting a hotel employee’s help in getting into Louis’s hotel room. You can only say “it’s not what it sounds like” so many times, and no one has ever wanted to believe them, anyway. Harry’s stomach turns over miserably. “Not that, like…I just mean, if people were to find out, they might cause trouble for you.”

Lee smiles, and his grin is conspiratorial. “You aren’t – you guys aren’t talking business, are you?” He looks so hopeful Harry can’t lie.

“I hope so,” he just says, and Lee’s whole face lights up.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” Lee confesses.

Harry thinks of Lee’s hopeful face the whole ride up to Louis’s hotel floor, and then he steps out of the elevator, his shoes soundless on the thin hotel carpet, and knocks on Louis’s door. Louis doesn’t answer at first, so Harry just knocks again. He’s just sliding his phone out of his pocket to ring Louis when the doors swings inward, and Harry stifles a sound of surprise.

Louis looks awful. He has deep purple shadows under his eyes, and his hair is a perfect rat’s nest of a disaster. His white t-shirt is on backwards and inside out, and he smells like day-old laundry and something acrid, like maybe vomit.

“What happened to you?”

Louis rubs at his eyes. “What?”

“Louis, it’s me, Harry,” Harry says. He wants to put his hand on Louis’s shoulder or tilt his face up to the light to check his pupils, but he’s still afraid to touch him where someone might see. “Let me in, c’mon, move aside.”

Too – too _something_ to argue _,_ Louis obeys. Harry shuts the door behind him and takes in Louis’s overturned hotel room with wide eyes. He holds Louis’s face between his palms and tilts his face up, and it’s like Louis finally figures out who he is, because he tries to pull away immediately.

“What are you doing here?” Louis asks.

Harry folds his hands behind his back. “We had a lunch,” he says softly, watching Louis slouch across the room until he all but melts into the armchair.

“Am I late?” Louis asks.

Harry perches on the edge of his bed. “About two hours, yeah.”

Louis groans, putting his head in his hands. “Sorry. I’ve not been feeling well, I must’ve overslept.”

“Overslept,” Harry repeats, eyeing the rumpled sheets, a handful of pills on the bedside table, and two empty vodka bottles on the floor beside. “Were the Donnie lads here?”

“Just a few,” Louis says, tipping his head back on the chair. He closes his eyes. “I mean,” he pulls his head up, “just for a laugh. We just had a lads’ night, you know how those go.”

Harry presses his hands together, studying the lines on his knuckles. “I was going to tell you something,” he admits. “But now I’m not sure if I can.”

Louis rolls his head in his palm to look at Harry. Christ, he looks old. He looks as old as Harry feels sometimes, especially in the mornings before he’s even gone to yoga or for a jog. He bends over and washes his face with cold water from the tap, and then he looks up and catches sight of himself in the mirror above the sink.

He never looks the way he expects himself to, and it’s a strange thing, because it’s like – it’s like he’s always expecting three more faces to be looking back at him, not just his own. Maybe he’s just seen too many album covers and photoshoots of himself and the lads over the years.

Softly, Louis says, “Since when have you and I ever bothered to keep secrets from each other?”

Unexpectedly, Harry huffs out a laugh. Even one corner of Louis’s thin mouth twitches. “The boys in the band want to come back,” Harry says. “But I don’t think we can do it if you’re…not without you,” he tacks on lamely. _If you’re an addict_ is probably not, like, the best way to phrase that.

Louis quirks one eyebrow. “Yes, but I’m a very functional alcoholic, you know.”

“You missed our lunch,” Harry reminds him. “Did you make it to the meeting you were meant to have?”

Louis casts his eyes up at the ceiling.

“Thought we didn’t keep secrets, you and me,” Harry reminds him. His palms are sweating against each other, and he has to fight the urge to fidget with his hair. He doesn’t want Louis to know quite how nervous he is, how bad he wants this. How easy he’ll be to convince.

Closing his eyes, Louis says, “Getting the band back together. Do you know – do you remember –”

Louis doesn’t have to be able to finish his sentence for Harry to know what he means. But he thinks of Anne’s quiet approval, and the look on the concierge’s face, and it’s still worth it. It’s still worth everything, almost.

“Yeah,” Harry just says.

“Don’t know how much of a dad I can be in the band,” Louis thinks aloud, his fingers twitching against the arm of the chair, like he’s already plonking out a tune on the piano in his head. “Don’t know how much of a dad I’ve been without the band, to be fair,” he adds, with a little tilt of his head that’s heart-breaking in its helplessness.

Louis looks Harry in the eyes, then, and Harry doesn’t know how to respond. He doesn’t know what Louis is looking for, and if it’s even Harry-specific, or if he’s just looking for that band thing. That extra sense, it sometimes feels like, for where Niall’s going to be onstage and when to shut up and let Liam handle an interview question. Something only they have.

“I can’t promise anything else,” Louis sighs. “But yeah, I’ll come back.”

Harry beams.

***

Harry is quiet in the car on the way back to his flat. Sometimes he calls a car and a driver taxies him around, and it’s nice, especially in New York, where there’s never anywhere to park. His driver today makes a polite attempt at conversation, and when Harry doesn’t respond, he lets Harry sit in silence.

Some of the trees in Central Park have been strung up with fairy lights for the holidays, and Harry can hear wind howling outside of the car windows as a front blows down from Canada. He pulls his knee-length coat tighter around himself in the backseat.

The new/old silver ring on his finger glimmers dully in the overcast afternoon light. The clouds are dark enough to be storm clouds, although they might give snow, if Harry’s weather app isn’t lying to him. It’s not totally unexpected.

Somehow, despite all of the time, the ring feels like a promise about _this_. Not about the band forming or even doing all the stuff none of them ever thought they’d be capable of, but about them coming back together again. A promise to be kept till he filled his promise, is Harry’s most romantic thought.

Harry thinks about Liam’s list of stuff they should’ve done last time round but never got to, and he wonders whether they wouldn’t have kept finding things to add to the list forever.

Harry’s phone vibrates in his pocket, so he pulls it out. Somehow, he’s surprised that it’s Niall. He picks up with a simple, “‘Lo?” 

“Hey,” Niall says, sounding surprised. “I’m surprised you picked up, I thought you might’ve been asleep already.”

“It’s only five here,” Harry says, checking his phone. He wonders what Niall is doing calling him at ten o’clock at night. Harry pictures him sat on his bed in his pants with an acoustic guitar on his lap, and then he has to stop himself, because he’s being good. He’s not doing stuff like that anymore. “Is everything okay?”

Niall says, “No, yeah, everything’s good. I was just thinking, how about we go for a round of golf while you’re here for Gemma’s baby. How’s that sound?”

 _Like three or four hours of torture, thank you,_ Harry thinks. And it is, in a way. Harry’s still going to feel better from having been around Niall for a few hours. “Sounds lovely,” Harry says, pressing the pad of his thumb to the ring on his finger. “I spoke to Louis today,” he tells Niall, even though he meant to tell Liam first. “He’s good to go, I think. Well, mostly.”

“Brilliant,” Niall breathes, his breath soft and familiar over the line.

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. Adrenaline trickles into his system like just before they step out onstage for a show, and he starts smiling. “Yeah, sounds good. Book it, I’ll be there.”

Niall makes a low, pleased sound that has Harry slumping in his seat like they’re laid out in a hotel room somewhere on tour, watching golf together before they switch to catch Friends on Nick at Night, Niall’s toes digging into Harry’s ribs. “Will do,” Niall just says, and rings off.

He puts his phone in his lap and watches the fairy lights go by in the trees, and he thinks about seeing his family for the holidays and not being so overworked that he sleeps through most of it, and how Gemma might have her baby very soon. He thinks about all the engagements One Direction always has around the holidays, and the sunken look on Louis’s face, and Niall strutting around the golf green, his hair glinting in the sun. It’s a mixed bag, really, of good and bad. Maybe that’s what growing up is really about, or something. Having enough good to outweigh the bad, like that’s some kind of victory. Maybe it is.

***

Gemma has her baby the same cold, gray night that snow falls on London for the first time all year. Harry’s been in town for just under a week, and at the hospital with her and Brian for just over two and a half hours. It’s slow going, labor, which he should’ve known before but somehow managed not to quite figure out. He’s just so used to the pictures that all of his friends post of themselves holding a squalling pink-faced infant no larger than a tiny pumpkin in their hands, he forgot all the hard work that came before.

Poor Brian is handling the stress about as well as Harry himself. He keeps walking in and out of the delivery room for ice chips for himself, while Gemma pushes on cue without ever seeming to get weary. She’s already got the weird goddess-mom thing going on. Harry’s trying not to let her know that he’s a little afraid of her now.

Harry switches out with Brian to have his hand crushed by his sister’s grip when Brian has had quite enough, thank you, and even though Harry’s pretending the bottom half of his sister’s body doesn’t exist it’s exciting stuff, being in the delivery room. Anne was meant to be here about an hour ago but she’s been held up by bad weather, so it’s Harry whose fingers Gemma’s weave through on momentary breaks from labor pains.

Smoothing his sister’s hair back from her sweaty forehead, Harry hums a soft, soothing note. “I know this is pretty terrible for you, Gemma, but I’m so excited.”

Gemma manages a laugh. “I’m pretty happy, too.” Her face wrinkles in pain.

The doctor says, “Alright, Uncle, you should get Dad in here. The baby’s coming fast.”

“Some definition of fast,” Gemma mutters dryly, so Harry laughs on his way out. He presses a kiss to Gemma’s forehead, and her fingers graze the sensitive inside of his wrist, briefly. “Someday it’ll be your turn to be Dad,” Gemma says.

Harry turns to find Brian, his heart aching with longing. He’ll have Gemma’s baby, though, and his other mates’, and maybe even the lads – the lads from the band, too. Brian jumps out of his seat in the waiting room and bolts down the hall like he might miss the baby being born, his trainers squeaking on the polished hospital floor.

With nothing left to do but wait, Harry decides to make a trip to the twenty-four hour cafeteria on the second floor of the hospital for a cup of coffee. He takes the lift instead of the stairs because hospital lifts and stairs somehow always manage to end up in different places, and when he steps out, he bumps into Niall.

Harry doesn’t question the fact that he’s there, which is maybe the strangest part. He’s always expecting Niall to pop up around the corner, maybe because he’s always hoping he will. Niall takes a step back, so Harry steps out of the lift, into the hallway. “When did you get here?” Harry asks. Then, logic finally kicking in, “Oh, God, everyone’s okay, right?”

“Yeah, everyone is fine,” Niall laughs. “Why do you keep asking me if everybody is okay?”

“Dunno,” Harry answers, checking to make sure Niall’s coming to the cafeteria with him. “Just figured, I don’t know, you wouldn’t call me if everyone weren’t.”

Quietly, Niall says, “I’m not the one who stopped taking my calls.”

 _You stopped calling eventually,_ Harry wants to retaliate, like it’s counter-evidence. It’s silly, and he shouldn’t, because Niall is right. Harry’s the one who stopped talking to him. “I know.”

Niall clears his throat. “Um, so I called Brian when you got papped heading in here, reckoned it might’ve been to do with Gemma. He said it was alright if I came, too.”

“You called Brian?” Harry asks, his brain stuttering at the thought. He hadn’t thought about that when he stopped taking Niall’s calls or looking at pictures of him in magazines or even thinking his name to himself. He’d forgotten that Niall was like another brother to Gemma, or that Anne might still call to check in with him every month or so, like she always did when they were working together.

“Yeah,” Niall says. “Is that alright?”

Harry wonders if it’s alright to ask Niall to be a little less perfect. Just for the sake of his sanity. Instead, he says, “Aisling doesn’t miss you?”

Niall puts his hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry reluctantly turns to look at him. “Listen, if you don’t want me here, I get it, okay? Just,” he stops, and Harry knows what he means to say. It’s just that Niall was there when Harry realized Gemma was growing away from him in ways that he should’ve expected. And instead of making Harry feel guilty about it, all he’d said was “Sorry.”

Because Harry is an emotionally compromised idiot, and because he’s been wondering, he asks, “Do you still care about me?”

“Just because I married someone else doesn’t mean I ever stopped caring about you,” Niall says, watching Harry grab a Styrofoam cup from the dispenser and fill it with that terrible machine-made cappuccino stuff that is in no way coffee. It tastes good, though. “We’re meant to be a band again, aren’t we?” Niall asks softly.

“Don’t make this about the band,” Harry snaps before he can help it. He clutches his cup of coffee to his chest, staring at the coffee machine so that he won’t look at Niall. “I wasn’t fucking you for the sake of the band,” he finally says, because it’s honest, turning his head to look at Niall. Niall blanches. “God knows I hope you weren’t, either.” He stalks toward the registers to pay the cashier a pound-fifty for his coffee. “Although it would certainly make things simpler.”

Niall takes a deep, deep breath through his nose. He waits until they’re in the hall to admit, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Harry doesn’t know what he wants him to say, either. Maybe he just wants to understand how Niall could’ve done it, married someone else. Harry still can’t make it past six months with someone before he starts worrying that it’s getting too serious. He slumps against the wall in the lift while he thinks about the best way to phrase this. Then, “I think we just need to, like. Do a better job than last time of keeping work stuff and our personal stuff separate, you know?”

“Oh,” Niall says. He braces himself against the lift wall with one shoulder, his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets like he’s not entirely sure what to do with them. “Alright.”

“So, like, as your band mate, I’m glad you’re here. As your…whatever we are,” Harry laughs, “friends, I guess; as your friend, I don’t know. I get to not know, yeah?”

Niall shrugs. “I wish it was simpler than that.”

“Someday, maybe,” Harry says, before he can think about it. He can still hear Niall singing to him over the phone at the airport that last time they saw each other before their publicist announced their break-up, creating the goodbye moment. Singing, _Tell me that you’ll wait for me / Hold me like you’ll never let me go._ Jesus, if he’d known this was what was going to come of that he’d never have – well, he’d certainly have thought twice before he fell in love with Niall. Not that he ever had any say in it, really. Whatever.

“Something for the list,” Niall suggests, the lift doors opening onto Gemma’s floor. They move out to the sterile white tile, Niall’s boots making soft clicking sounds against the floor like Harry’s mum’s high heels on special days before they went to church. “You know, for Liam’s list. You and me, simple.”

Harry just nods, not trusting himself to speak. When they reach the waiting room just outside of the bank of delivery rooms, they find Anne and Robin sat on the uncomfortable chairs. Harry’s mum’s hair is still styled, and she’s wearing dark red lipstick. He smiles so wide it hurts. “Mum.”

“Boys,” she says, delighted. She rises to give them each a hug, and Harry melts a little into her familiar embrace. Not that he’d been worried with all these fancy doctors around in this top quality hospital or anything, but there’s something about your sister screaming in pain that chafes on one’s nerves like a cheese grater. “How’s Gemma?” she asks, like Brian hasn’t been sending her updates every five minutes for the past three and a half hours.

Anne pulls Niall into a hug next, so Harry settles on the seat opposite hers after shaking hands with Robin. Niall goes in for a hug with him, too, and then he slouches in the seat beside Harry’s.

“She’s okay,” Harry tells Anne. He clenches his fingers, remembering Gemma’s iron grip on his hand. “She’s already got that, like, mom thing going on.”

“The scary thing, he means,” Niall translates easily. “The superhuman thing.”

Harry just nods. He’s not sure whether he’s happier Niall sat beside him so that he can’t look at him, or if it’s worse that Niall’s elbow keeps brushing his and Harry can smell his laundry detergent: still Tide Free & Clear, because he’s got sensitive skin. He made Harry buy it, too, when he was staying with Harry in LA. It took him months to use up the whole bottle. He’s kept buying it, for some unidentifiable reason.

“A new baby in the family is so exciting,” Robin says, taking Anne’s hand in his. He looks proper thrilled, and it makes Harry glad to see. Sometimes he forgets that Robin isn’t his dad when he did so much to raise him; he taught Gemma to drive and Harry to shave, even though he’s only recently started to need that damn skill. “Have they decided on a name?”

“I’m still hoping for Vine,” Harry says, so that Niall snorts a little and nudges his arm familiarly against his.

Niall scrunches his face up as he remembers, “What was the other one you were always going on about? Was it James for a boy, was the one?”

“Like Harry Potter,” Harry reminds him, crossing his legs and sinking lower in his seat. Niall’s eyes meet his, and he looks exasperated and amused at the same time. He looks at Harry just the way he always did, and it makes Harry smile. “Emma for a girl is good, too.”

Niall makes a face. “You’re just saying that because you think Emma Watson is fit. That’s too weird.”

“No, it’d be after _Jane Eyre._ ” Harry loves that bit about “She doesn’t need anyone else to judge her by. She has herself,” or however it goes.

“That was Charlotte Bronte,” Anne puts in lightly. “I think you’re thinking of _Emma,_ by Jane Austen.”

Harry waves a hand. “Whatever, they’re both good books. And Emma is a good name.” He takes a sip of his machine coffee, and it’s not that bad, actually. “Do you want some?” he offers his mum, who accepts the Styrofoam cup and takes a sip. “Here, let me go get you a cup.”

“I’ll go,” Niall says, pressing Harry back down into his seat with a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

Harry watches him go, partly because he likes the way Niall moves, partly because the view is good and Niall can’t, by definition, see him do it. He’s trying to be good, but it’s hard, and he’s had a stressful day. Niall’s butt makes it better.

When he turns around, his mum and Robin are both looking at him with twin worried looks on their faces. It’s something he’s noticed about all his married friends, from Gemma and Brian to Grimmy and the bloke Grim fell for with the great bushes of red hair. Married couples kind of start to look like each other, after a while. Harry draws back into his chair. “What?”

“He’s married,” Anne reminds him, cutting to the chase. Cutting to the quick, too. It hurts like a shot hurts, the pain lingering long after the needle is done injecting medicine.

“I’m not – doing anything,” Harry says lamely. He’s still not sure that, given half a chance, he wouldn’t absolutely jump at any opportunity Niall gave him. “I mean, I wouldn’t. I’m not – like that.”

Anne takes Harry’s hand and cradles it between her own. “I know, my love.” She kisses his knuckles, which are bruised from one too many rounds with the sandbag, and Harry could cry.

A nurse opens the swinging double doors to the delivery room hallway, and when she spots Harry, she smiles. “You must be the rest of the family?” she asks, looking between Anne and Robin. Harry’s stomach does a weird, unwelcome twist at the thought of Niall being sat beside him. “Good,” the nurse says. “There’s a bouncing newborn baby Mum wants you to meet.”

Harry’s up and out of his seat before the nurse is even done talking. Then, “Oh, wait, Niall.”

“I’ll wait here for him,” Robin offers, waving his hand. He smiles encouragingly at Harry. “You go meet your niece.”

So Harry goes. His niece comes before his old friend, honestly. Even one of his oldest, dearest friends.

Gemma’s sat up in beds with her sweaty hair plastered to her forehead when Harry and Anne rush in, and Brian has a black eye. “What happened, love?” Anne asks, folding him into a hug before she moves in to kiss Gemma’s cheek next. “So sorry we’re late.”

“Ah, it was an accident,” Brian grins. “Gemma punched me.”

“I’m never going through that again,” Gemma says, leaning her head back into the pillows. She watches Harry pore over the wee pink baby in the bassinet beside her bed. He wants desperately to touch her but Liam and Niall told him all about their adventure with lions on the savanna. You don’t mess with a mama’s cubs.

“May I?” Harry asks.

Gemma rolls her eyes. “It’s your goddaughter, Haz. I’d be hurt if you didn’t.”

Harry pauses with one hand curved under the baby’s tiny, fragile skull, the other supporting her back. She’s so small and fragile in his hands, he can’t believe she’s real. “Goddaughter?” He looks down at the baby, whose wrinkled pink face and glazed eyes don’t seem all that interested in him. Just as well. Harry loves her enough for the both of them, and she’ll come around.

“Did you hear that?” Harry asks, holding her to his chest. “I’m moving in with you,” Harry tells Gemma and Brian. “I’m going to sleep in her rocking chair, and you can’t make me leave.”

“You’ll be wanting to go soon enough, as she’ll be waking you up every two hours to feed,” Anne says dryly.

“But we appreciate the sentiment,” Brian adds tactfully.

Harry strokes the backs of her itty bitty knuckles with his fingertip. Outside, it’s snowing again. The thick flurries drift down from the sky and settle on the windowsill of Gemma’s hospital room, and Harry knows the air must taste of iron and ozone.

In a couple of years’ time, maybe, this little baby will want to put on her snow boots and go play in it for the first time. Harry’s been wary of snow since that time he busted his chin on that disastrous ski trip with Taylor, but he finds himself looking forward to it now. Like everything is new again, the past wiped clean. A fresh start.

Robin and Niall knock gently on the open hospital room door, and then they join the rest for a hug and an obligatory sound of admiration at the new baby; she’s not much to look at now, more like a smushed potato with a face than anything, but. Still, Harry thinks, smelling the peach fuzz at the top of her soft skull. He nods at Niall, who claps Brian on the shoulder and shakes his hand. A fresh start feels like exactly what they need.

***

Niall rolls up to the golf course in the most atrocious pair of golf trousers and polo shirt Harry has ever seen. Harry looks up over the top of his sunglasses to get a better look. “Hideous,” he decides, while Niall rounds the boot of his car to grab his golf clubs. Harry quits leaning against the boot of his own car to get a better look.

“They’re almost as bad as yours,” Niall agrees, eyeing Harry’s acid green plaid shorts. It’s a bit breezy, especially with the smell of snow on the air, but he doesn’t have another pair of shorts or trousers quite as ugly. “I’m a little disappointed, actually. I wanted to be wearing the ugliest outfit on the course today.”

Harry preens. “Thank you.” He studies the deep purple and teal paisley pattern of Niall’s trousers. “Yours are kind of like, hypnotizing, though.”

“These are the ugliest golf trousers ever seen,” Niall says, in his nice deep announcer voice. He slides on a pair of sunnies with the mirrored lenses so that Harry’s looking at his own face, his curly hair squeezed under a jaunty golf cap. Niall puts on a baseball cap, and then they head inside to start on the eighteen holes.

Harry has to rent a set of golf clubs because he left his at home in New York, and the fit isn’t quite right; these aren’t quite as posh as his own, and they’re not near as posh as Niall’s, who had his damn X-Factor number engraved on the bottom. “You sap,” Harry tells Niall, and then he wonders if it’s okay to slag him off like that. Niall just rolls his eyes, putting his hands on his hips. Harry uses Niall’s club to line up his stroke.

The course isn’t as green and plush as Harry’s usual place in LA, and the sky in London is so different from the sky in LA or New York; slate gray and overcast, and somehow throwing everything into sharper relief: the lines on Niall’s face, though he’s aged well, and the stray hairs slipping out from under his cap, and the way the shadows cast on the grass by the trees are dappled.

Harry twists back and whacks the ball with perhaps too much force, if the way it goes soaring off onto the green is any indication. He shades his eyes to watch the ball land and almost roll into a sandpit. They load their golf bags back onto the golf cart and Niall drives them along the path, nearer to the hole. It’s kind of tedious, but it’s a hell of a lot better than bringing caddies, who, like. Linger, so close, and hear things. It’s so much better when it’s just Harry and Niall on the green so early it feels like they have the whole place to themselves.

“How’s the baby?” Niall asks politely, his forearms braced on the bottom of the steering wheel.

“If the airbag goes your arms are going to get blown off,” Harry says, tapping the back of Niall’s hand. “Hold the wheel the right way.”

“Ten years on, you’re still giving me shit about this?” Niall huffs. He grins, moving to hold the wheel loosely the way he should. “It’s not even a proper car.”

Harry relaxes against his seat. “If your forearms get blown off, you can’t play guitar,” Harry points out. “I’m just protecting your career. Anyway, yeah, the baby’s great. Gemma and Brian still haven’t picked a name, so I had to send over a whole bunch of personalized stationery with their picture from the delivery room. The cards read, ‘Love from the Berkowitzes: Gemma, Brian, and Nemo.’”

“You had to,” Niall repeats dryly, and Harry laughs.

“Well, you know. They wouldn’t let me fix her up with a pony or one of those cradles with the built in Subwoofers, or anything fun like that, so.” Harry pulls his cap off his head and runs his hand through his curls. His hair is a little damp, not from sweat but from the shower he’d had after bikram yoga this morning.

He thought about sleeping in a little, but then he figured he should be as prepared as possible for spending hours alone with Niall. It’s not that he doesn’t trust himself, it’s that if Niall gave him an inch Harry would absolutely take it. Which is probably not trusting himself, but he _wants_ to, he just doesn’t want to be disappointed. So he’s being careful.

Which is maybe kind of stupid, because most of the time it hurts to look at Niall. Of course, Harry still does, but not without this weird sinking in his chest, maybe like…maybe like disappointment. Maybe Niall’s not the man Harry always thought he was, if he could just turn around and marry someone else after all that. Or maybe he’s just better at self-preservation than Harry ever was.

“So this thing with Louis,” Niall starts on the eighteenth hole, his voice dipping with concern, “how big of a deal is it?”

Harry toes at the fresh sod planted just off the edge of the course. A bit of flowers, to make the green pretty. Harry accidentally thwacked his ball over here, so Niall ambled with him to putt it out. “I don’t know. Have you kept in touch with him?”

“Some,” Niall answers easily. “You know, it was hard with his new label and the babies. He, uh. I don’t know.” He scratches his head.

Harry immediately guesses what he’s on about. “You know something about his work stuff? Niall,” he gives him a skeptical look when Niall tries on that blank expression, the one Harry always hated, “you’ve played with, like, half the population of musicians. C’mon.”

“Just, I’m not sure his label is doing great? I mean, shit, don’t quote me on that,” Niall laughs uneasily. “I’m only telling you ‘cos it’s you.”

Harry spins his golf club in his hand. He eyes Niall on the course, looking so at ease here among the fluttering golf flags and the waving branches of the elm trees in the distance as he does on stage in front of twenty thousand people. It’s as frustrating as it ever was. “D’you think that’ll be a problem for you? Your contract, I mean.”

They still have so much to do to get the band going again. So much logistical stuff to work out, it’s kind of staggering. Not least of all, when they can get together to actually make music again.

Niall bows his head forward when he laughs, soft and close, so unlike the distinct bark of nervous laughter he gives interviewers or fans. Harry can see the pink tips of his ears and the reddening tops of his cheeks, as Niall is entirely capable of getting sunburnt in two hours in December. There’s a fine, light spray of freckles right across the bridge of his nose, and there was a time in Harry’s life where he drunkenly tried to kiss each one before he fell asleep.

“Would you believe that was my only condition when I signed with Ed?”

“What?” Harry asks. He can feel himself start to smile, just because Niall is grinning so wide. He looks happy. He looks so beautiful.

Niall casts his eyes up in a self-deprecating kind of way. “I have an opt-out clause to rejoin One Direction.”

“Gingerbread Man Records just became my favorite label ever,” Harry says, his fingers itching at his sides to bury themselves in Niall’s hair or shake his hand or get the fuck out of here, because this is awful and painful, that he can’t touch him.

“Do you want to come back to mine?” Niall asks, stowing his gear in the back of the golf cart. They have one hole to go and the score is tied, and he shouldn’t.

“Sure,” Harry says.

It’d be too obvious for Harry just to follow Niall back to his place, so he makes a couple of detours. He stops to post a letter to his old law firm telling them to fire up their engines, he was about to start generating a lot of business again, and then he calls ahead for two orders of the peri peri chicken from Nando’s, where he’s able to duck in and out without anyone stopping him, even though he’s sure people snapped pics. It’s weird to still be so recognizable, although – although maybe there’s something about how much time he’s spent with his ex-band mates recently. Harry’s heart gives a hopeful lurch at the thought.

Harry punches in the security code Niall gave him to get past the gates in front of his house, and then he pulls into the half-circle driveway. It’d be a grand affair if not for the English garden Niall has growing all over the place. It feels more like something from his childhood at his nan’s place than a rockstar’s posh mansion, and he tells Niall so when he opens the door and steps back to let Harry in, his socked feet soundless on the hardwood floor.

Niall accepts the bag of food in Harry’s hands while Harry hangs his coat on the rack beside the door and kicks his boots off onto the rug underneath a painting of some Renaissance lady and a coffee table. Well, where there used to be a coffee table. It’s not there anymore. Actually, Harry realizes, following Niall as he pads down the hall and through the living room to the kitchen, kind of a lot of his stuff is missing.

“Are you redecorating?” Harry asks, fidgeting with the locket around his throat. Gem gave it to him for being the baby’s godfather even though they’re not going to have a formal christening; he can put a lock of the baby’s hair in if he takes her to her first haircut. It’s a dry as paper dig at Harry’s overgrown hair, and he’d accepted it delightedly.

Niall pulls out chairs for both of them in his sunny kitchen. It’d seemed so gray and overcast outside, but here in Niall’s house with his warm wooden floors and the whole place smelling ever so slightly of Niall’s favorite lemon-scented cleaning product, today feels like a day in the middle of spring or early summer. Harry can picture Niall’s russet-haired kids banging the back door open and running in for a drink of water in the middle of a long day of playing, their clothes and faces streaked with dirt and sweat.

Harry shakes himself out of it, opening his takeaway box and sending a quick prayer up to the chickens slaughtered for this meal before he tucks in. He looks up with his cheeks bulging full of food when Niall says, “Oh, I meant to tell you –” and he stops, his eyes softening. He waits until Harry has swallowed to ask, “D’you like it?”

“I’m not vegetarian anymore, but I don’t get takeaway very often,” Harry explains, spearing his chips with his fork.

“You eat the same way,” Niall observes, and even though it’s kind of a ridiculous thing to say, Harry’s reminded of how many years there are between them. He keeps looking at Niall as if he’s twenty-one years old and they’ve lived at each other’s sides since they were sixteen; he forgets that years have gone by, they’re different now. Supposedly, anyway. “I always thought, y’know, like Theo. Denise just took his shirt off so that he wouldn’t get his sleeves dirty.”

Harry studies the food in his white Styrofoam box. “I’m not a little kid,” he tells Niall, although of course he knows that. Just. Only, just because he can’t have Niall doesn’t mean he wants Niall to think he can’t have…someone.

Low, Niall snorts and says, “Trust me, I know.”

Harry’s not sure what he means, and he feels uncomfortable trying to ask. When he’s done eating, he pushes his box away and clasps his hands together in front of him. “So, like, band stuff,” Harry says, and Niall nods to show he understands the transition from personal time. Harry’s determined to be good about that. “I don’t know when you’ve got time off, or the other lads, but we should figure out when we can get together and start working on the new record.”

“What producers to use, that kind of thing,” Niall nods along. “Hold on, let me grab my iPad so I can take notes.”

His feet pound the wooden steps upstairs, and the doorbell goes. “I’ll get it,” Harry shouts, pushing his wooden chair away from the table so that the feet scrape a bit against the wooden floor. He trots to the front door and pulls it open. “Niall Horan?”

“Yes, he –” _lives here,_ Harry means to say, but the mailman thrusts a manila envelope at him. Harry accepts it and the mailman is hurrying off to his next stop before Harry can even tell him to have a nice day. “Thanks,” he calls at his back anyway. He checks the label on the envelope out of purely bored and not at all invasive or weird interest in Niall’s life. He’s not at all surprised by the lawyer’s office on the upper left hand corner of the package. They’ve all got huge legal teams. This one sounds familiar, though, for some reason. Harry frowns, trying to place it.

“You got mail,” Harry tells Niall, when he finds him sat back at the breakfast table beside the big windows in the kitchen. The whole place smells of chicken and peri peri sauce now, and Harry’s stomach feels satisfyingly full. Niall hardly looks up when he accepts the envelope, and then he sees the address, and he presses his lips together. “Thanks,” he tells Harry.

Harry clears his throat. “Yeah, so. I’m headed back to the states in a few days to do a little EP with this band I found in the Bootleg Bar –”

“You still go there?” Niall cuts him off. He’s looking at Harry with that almost wondering look on his face, and Harry bites the inside of his cheek.

“Sometimes,” Harry admits. “After, like, y’know, I didn’t go to some of those places so much, but,” Harry shrugs, “I missed it.”

Niall’s eyes are so soft and sad, like they get in fan pictures, sometimes. Vulnerable, like. Like he’s afraid he’s not said, enough, how appreciative he is, or how much he loves them. It. You, if you’re very lucky. “Sorry,” Niall says softly.

“It was just pretend, right? That’s what you told Aisling.” Harry mimics Niall. Then, “Oh, God. I don’t know where that came from, I was just – Jesus, Niall, I –”

“No, it’s alright.” Niall looks down at his chapped, calloused hands folded together on the top of his wooden table. His hair is all dark now, and his eyes look so very blue in contrast. But it’s kind of like putting a new coat of paint on a house. The house is still there, and when you’ve grown up in it, like Harry grew up with Niall, well. The changes are pretty insignificant, really. “I’d rather you tell me stuff.” He looks up at Harry with a grimace.

Harry rubs his arms. He leans against the back of his chair, digging his toes into the plush wool carpet beneath the table. “I guess I just, like.” Harry takes a deep breath. “Is that what you really think? That it wasn’t real?”

Niall’s face falls. “Christ, Harry.” He runs his hand through his dark ruffled hair, and Harry very carefully doesn’t look around or fidget with his bottom lip. He just holds very still.

“I didn’t think I’d fall in love with anyone else. I’d been hung up on you for so long. But then, when I wasn’t seeing you every day, it was worse, for a while. I got very good at not thinking of you. Then it got better. I met her at a pub at one of the Moonlights’ UK dates, and it’s not like I meant to get married, you know? I didn’t mean - I guess maybe I still thought…” For a heart-aching, harrowing second, Harry thinks he might be about to make Harry’s whole heart turn itself inside-out. It wouldn’t be a kindness, at this point.

Niall shrugs, and moves on. “But we’d been together for a few years, and it seemed silly not to. Looking back, you know, at you and me, we were so young. We were just kids, really; neither of us had real lives since we joined the band, and, I don’t know.” Niall lets out a soft, joyless laugh and covers his face with his hands. “I wouldn’t blame you for hating me.”

Harry clears his throat softly. He’s not sure what he’d been expecting, exactly. Not that, quite, but something like it. “It’s not that different than me moving out of LA, I guess,” Harry says. “I couldn’t even think of your name, it’d be so bad.”

Niall lifts his head, and he might be his father, he looks so old and pained. “Sorry,” he says softly.  

Harry touches the loose-leaf edge of his journal. “I should probably get going if I want to see the baby before Gemma puts her down for bedtime.”

“I’m sorry,” Niall says again, when he’s holding the door open for Harry. He doesn’t look lost or forlorn or small in the open doorway of his house. He just looks like Niall. “For what I put you through.”

 _You make me happy_ , Harry told Niall once. He makes him happy now in a different way, the familiar slope of his nose and his shoulders and his laugh, mixed up with all of Harry’s best memories of the most exciting time of his life. He’s an inextricable part of the band. Maybe that’ll have to be enough.

“Band stuff,” Harry reminds him, and Niall tips his head against the door, his blue eyes glittering as he watches Harry drive away. Harry keeps glancing into the rearview mirror as if he can still see them for a long, long time.

***

Liam is the one who schedules them a group Skype call, so of course it’s at the most inconvenient time for everyone. That’s Liam’s idea of fair. Niall has dark shadows under his eyes at 3am UK time, and Harry has been at the studio for the better part of two days trying to finalize the work on the band’s first single, and Louis has vom in his hair. It might be one of his kid’s vomit, except they’re usually past the spit-up stage by four years old.

“Glad to see everyone,” Liam beams, the unbearable energizer bunny.

“I went running and to the gym today,” Harry says.

“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” Louis demands.

Niall rolls his eyes, and Liam says swiftly, “Well, I went for a hike in the park and I boxed.”

“Can you two please save your protein powder jack-off competition for a time when I couldn’t be asleep?” Louis demands, so Harry opens up a private chat window and sends to Liam, _I ran two miles in fifteen minutes and fourteen seconds._

 _Six miles in an hour and twenty-two,_ Liam texts back, so that Harry’s scowl and Liam’s smug smile are broadcast to all of them.

Niall groans aloud. “Truly, lads, save the pissing match, eh?”

“For once, I agree with the leprechaun,” Louis says gruffly. “Liam, read us the, uh, memo or whatever it is I know you worked on all day.”

Liam clears his throat, his eyes cast down for a moment like he’s either inordinately pleased or upset. “Well, the main thing is we need to find out when we can hit the studio together.”

“We may not have to do that,” Louis points out. “We could send in our individual stuff, y’know, to Jamie or Julian and they could bring it all together for us. Like they have before.”

Liam, Harry, and Niall go quiet for a moment. Harry finally ventures, “I don’t want to make a record like that this time, though.”

Niall’s nodding even before the words are out. “Our records always sounded like us _plus_ them.”

“We always got credit for stuff they did and not credit for stuff we did,” Liam agrees.

Louis raises his hands. “It’s not like I was attached to the idea, lads, it was just a suggestion.”

“Do you think they’ll be upset not to be invited to work with us?” Harry asks. “Should we send them a card?”

Louis rolls his eyes and puts his head in his hands, and Liam says kindly, “I’m sure that wouldn’t hurt, Harry,” so Harry makes a note of it. “But actually, I like Louis’s idea. We always did go off and bring our stuff back together. We could do that again.”

“Producers _are_ good for stuff like that,” Harry muses.

Niall nods. “Yeah, like on the Moonlights’ first album, Flood really sorted us out.”

“Those were cover songs,” Louis points out.

Quietly, Niall says, “Not all of them.”

“Um,” Harry clears his throat, “speaking as a producer, I know what he means. Like, it’s about making the record your artist wants, not the record you’d make. I mean, obviously _I_ can’t produce, but someone like that, yeah?”

The four of them fall silent again, waiting for someone to bring up a counterpoint. “I guess we can vote on it,” Louis suggests. “Everyone for bringing in a new producer?”

All four of them raise their hands. “Alright then,” Liam says, ticking that box off his list. “Find a new producer,” he writes laboriously. “We’ll decide on the new producer later. The next thing is, uh, figuring out when to meet with said producer.”

“We can, like, interview a bloke over Skype,” Niall says, cringing at the thought.

“Or,” Harry says. “We could maybe work up some new material together, and then have a producer come in and polish it? Sometimes that’s all I do. Y’know, like giving the, uh, album a refrain like poems have got. So it all goes together, like.”

The other lads nod along. “Yeah, sounds alright,” Liam says slowly, tapping his pen against his notebook. “So, all for us bringing in material of our own, testing it out in the studio, then bringing in production?”

Again, all four of them raise their hands. Liam looks up from his journal with a beaming smile on his face. “Perfect.”

Louis tosses a handful of Cheetos at his face, and most of them land in his mouth. “Good, thank fuck. When the hell are we doing this, then?”

Harry winces, covering his speaker with the flat of his hand. “Watch your language, would you, Lou?”

“Is the baby there?” Liam asks interestedly. “I’ve heard it looks just like you.”

“ _She,”_ Harry emphasizes, because babies, “does look like me and Gemma. Gemma and I, I mean. She’s beautiful and perfect. Here, I’ve got some pictures I can send you.”

Louis and Niall groan. “Please, spare him,” Louis drawls, grinning wickedly.

“I’d think you’d be more sensitive to the doting godfather’s plight, seeing as how you’re supposed to be a father yourself,” Harry sniffs. He instantly realizes he’s just put his damn foot in his goddamn mouth again, and he freezes, half-afraid of what Louis’s going to say.

Of course, Louis goes for being as cutting as possible. “Someday when you’re a dad yourself you’ll understand,” he snaps. “If that ever happens.” His feed cuts out and his face disappears, the three windows showing Niall, Liam, and Harry shuffling to fill Louis’s space. Harry catches sight of his expression in the window, and he schools himself to look a little less devastated.

Liam tries to play peacekeeper. “You know,” he tries, swallowing hard, “you and Louis, maybe you can be good for each other this way. You can help him be less – uh, be more loving, and he can help you…be honest.”

Harry shakes his hair out and rakes it back with his hand. “Sure, Liam.”

“Love you, buddy,” Liam says. “I’m going on a six-mile jog tomorrow.”

“Time yourself,” Harry says, going for a smile, and Liam smiles back, gives a jaunty wave, and signs out.

Just Harry and Niall are left, and Niall says, “Sorry about, you know.”

“You don’t have to apologize for Louis to me, Niall,” Harry says softly. “It’s just how Louis is.” Especially to Harry, who he’s always appeared to want to hate so badly. It’d certainly have made things easier when they were the only two people seemingly in the world who didn’t think they were secretly dating.

His voice too light, almost thin, Niall says, “Besides, I’m sure you’ve got your pick of the lot of women who’d love to make a baby with you.”

Harry stares at the pixelated version of Niall on the computer screen in his home office in New York. Rumour makes a soft, whining sound from the spot under the heating vent, and Harry reaches out without thinking so that Rumour can rub his head up against Harry’s hand. “It’s not that,” Harry says.

“Then what is it?” Niall asks, glancing up at the camera almost nervously.

Harry swallows, and blinks. His phone starts ringing right on cue, and he points to it and makes a little jerky motion with his head, and Niall nods. They wave goodbye, and Harry accepts the call from the grocery deliveryman telling him that he’s standing outside, so Harry gets up and goes to accept his order of eggplants, eggs, and fruit smoothies.

***

Rumour’s tongue lolls out of the side of his mouth, and Harry cruises to a stop, bending in half and putting his hands on his knees. He holds his side, where a stitch has formed. “I hate Liam,” he tells his dog, who shuffles restlessly from one foot to the other to the other. His paws in their little doggy athletic boots crush the light layer of frost settled on the floor of Central Park, and steam curls out of both Harry’s and Rumour’s mouths when they breathe.

“C’mon, pup,” Harry sighs, wiping at his nose with his sleeve. It sort of feels like it’s running, but it could also just be frozen solid. Harry sniffs hard. “We’ve got two miles left, and then we’ll stop for brekkie, eh?”

Rumour makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, his tail swishing excitedly, so Harry puts his head down and pushes his way through the rest of his run. He gets to come to Central Park way more than he ever expected, and it’s been lovely to watch the seasons change in real time for the past few years, like when he was a lad again and would measure time by the seasons. He was always looking forward to Easter Break and the summer holidays, and then the moment they arrived, he was so desperately bored. He doesn’t quite have summer breaks anymore, but he’s still hopeless about time off.

Harry readjusts the sweatband holding back his hair, and then he and Rumour trot into their favorite café just outside of Central Park. The inside is so chintzy and, well, cheesy, especially with the little flower arrangements on every surface and the mismatched chairs pushed under the tables, but Harry likes it. It reminds him of something, he’s not sure what; or maybe it’s that this place would be so hard to pack up and move that he likes it.

He used to be so picky about the stuff in his flat, but then he started filling it without worrying about moving out in a few days’ time. His mum calls it clutter but Harry likes it, the permanency of it. Thinking of his own cluttered flat makes Harry think of Niall’s weirdly empty house, and he wonders what he’s doing. After they went their separate ways but before Niall married someone else, Harry used to play this game all the time.

He’d imagine what Niall was doing halfway around the world, and it helped him establish routines of his own; if Niall was eating dinner, Harry would eat lunch; if he thought he might be working, Harry would work, too. If he thought Niall would be fast asleep, his socked feet kicked out the bottom of his blankets like he always used to, then Harry would prop his journal up on his knees and write in bed.

It’s silly now, and inappropriate, and it still hurts; but in the soft, achy way that an almost-healed broken bone hurts. That’s how broken bones get stronger than unbroken ones, of course. From use.

Rumour tries to jump into the chair beside Harry, but he clucks his tongue and Rumour settles at his side, his leash very loosely tied around the leg of Harry’s chair. It’s illegal not to have his dog on a leash, but it’s so silly to tie him up, too. As often as not, Harry lets Rumour off his leash in places like these. The worst he’ll do is make a little kid fall in love with him.

“What can I get for you?” the waitress asks, so Harry has a double espresso and an egg white omelet. He gets the breakfast plate for Rumour, who gets a cheat day once every couple of weeks or so. Harry is always worried about not feeding him enough calories in the winter, but Rumour doesn’t like the canned stuff, and, well. Anyway, Harry tries to take good care of him.

Harry would buy a paper and stay and read, or take Rumour to the record store just a few doors down and shop for vintage vinyl, but he has a meeting with Liam scheduled. Harry strokes his hand through Rumour’s fur while Rumour chows down on his breakfast, and thinks about not coming back here for a while. It’s just one of those things that changes when Harry’s on tour and doesn’t come home. As much as he’ll miss it, he hurries home with a skip in his step, Rumour trotting dutifully at his side.

“I say we should just schedule something and make everyone show up,” Liam says over Skype, frowning as he scrolls through the calendar app on his phone. Harry watches the furrows in his brow deepen until they start stacking up like flapjacks, Liam’s face goofy-looking in the low quality of his laptop screen.

Sometimes Harry brings his laptop to this café that’s made out to be some kind of butterfly garden for the illusion of being outdoors. He went on a holiday to the Caribbean a few years back and that was lovely, but he still doesn’t get to spend as much time outside as he’d like. He hadn’t had time to shower after his run, so his own skin is sticky and slightly smelly to his nose. He ties his hair back from his face with an elastic from his wrist.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Harry admits, clicking the “share screen” window in their messaging app so that Liam can see the tab he pulls open.

“‘Romantic porn,’” Liam reads, squinting to read Harry’s other tabs. He starts laughing. “Harry.”

Harry props his chin in his hand, not even trying to hide his smile. “What? It’s good. The two blokes, they met at the park one day, and –”

“Please, God, don’t give me your breakdown of a gay porno, Haz,” Liam winces.

“Just because you’re not getting any in real life…” Harry trails off delicately, timing a sip of his tea so that he almost snorts his vanilla earl grey all over his computer screen when Liam makes a wounded face.

Huffy, Liam says, “Well, neither are you,” which isn’t strictly true. ‘Course, there’s a reason he’s not searching for “one night stands” on PornHub. “Show me what you meant to show me, you asshole.”

So Harry maximizes the tab with the rental property on. Harry clears his throat. “It’s, er, like this great big house. I figured, like, when we were starting out we all lived in the X-Factor house and then in the same flats in London. It’d sort of be nice to do the same thing again.”

“Like we’re all little again,” Liam agrees softly. Even though it’s not true at all. Louis has kids and Liam has Sophia and Niall has a wife. Harry has a dog. He smiles down at Rumour, and Rumour rolls onto his back and goes to sleep with his paws up in the air.

“So, this summer?” he tentatively pencils in, thinking of going somewhere hot and sandy, working on his tan in between recording sessions. It’ll be great, like the lads’ holiday Louis was always going on about. Just a few years later than they expected, too.

Harry clears his throat. Rumour rolls over onto Harry’s slippered feet, and Harry reaches down and scratches his head. Rumour lets out a little huffing breath and lets his tongue loll out of his mouth, the silly dog. “Yeah, so, these are the properties. There’s a bunch, and kind of all over the place, I just made a short list.”

“Which one is your favorite?” Liam asks brilliantly, so Harry smiles.

“I like the ones on the coast of France,” he admits. Harry watches Liam pull the information and put it in an email to the other lads, which Harry is sure to be pinged with as well, “for his records.” “Maybe it’ll be like…I don’t know. Like a man band, like we always used to joke. That’d be nice, right? To be grown up this time?”

“Maybe,” Liam just says, tipping his head toward Harry in a not-really-answering sort of way. He lets out a sigh. “To be honest, it’d be nice to be a little less grown up sometimes, I think.”

Harry just sits back in his chair and plays with the locket on a chain around his neck. Liam signs out a few minutes later to head to a writing session with someone doing a soundtrack to the next great American novel movie, which is way more Harry’s bag than Liam’s and if he’d just let him _help,_ but anyway.

Harry leaves Rumour sleeping on the floor beneath his desk and goes to finally shower. He peels his clothes off and ducks under the spray, his hair sticking to the tops of his shoulders in the shower. He wipes the steam off of the big mirror in his bathroom with the edge of his towel so he can see himself in the mirror. The hectic, frantic look he had right after the band went on hiatus has all been worn out of him now; he looks older, less childish and soft.

“Might as well,” he remembers Zayn laughing, his voice loose with alcohol. His accent had already started slipping by then, so that sometimes he had Liam’s or Louis’s neat Northern inflection rather than his own broad Bradford lilt. Or maybe Zayn was just doing his best impression of Harry.

“Don’t think I won’t,” Harry remembers answering. He smiled wide when Zayn played with the trigger on the tattoo gun in his hand. “Wait, wait, you know what,” he’d hiccupped. “We should tattoo each other.”

Zayn argued, “You have such shit handwriting, though.”

“No, I don’t,” Harry said indignantly. “C’mon, you can do me first.”

“How many times have you said that before?” Zayn asked, nevertheless drawing up the sitting chair in the corner to Harry’s bed. Harry flopped down and stretched out, pulling up his shirt. “Okay, Mick Jagger. Here?”

“Sure,” Harry remembers shrugging. No matter how many tattoos he got he always has a moment of panic just before the needle touches down, where he wonders whether he really wants this done to his body forever. It’s like the split second before jumping off a diving board, or before taking a car around a sharp bend without hitting the brakes.

He remembers Zayn blowing across the top of his tattoo when he was done, the skin burning in a familiar way. Zayn’s bright, hazel eyes turned soft. “It’s not as good as the screw,” Zayn said softly, “but it’ll do.”

Zayn’s _Might as well_ might be covered up now, but Harry still remembers it. He watches himself touch his hip in the mirror, and the laurel on top, and he’s glad that he doesn’t have to see it, even if he’ll never forget it.

***

Gemma and Brian finally pick a name when spring and new flowers are breaking through the layer of snow and ice on the ground like weeds through the pavement. Brian’s family is as loosely Jewish as Gemma’s family is loosely Catholic, so they celebrate in British fashion: with tea, and a bunch of relatives who all like to goss about each other.

“One of the aunties might be a baby-stealer,” Harry tells Brian, who he finds inside the kitchen cupboard, attempting to hide from Harry’s other auntie with the habit of pinching bums. “I think Gemma’s got an eye on her, though. We’re pretty sure.”

“Oh, good,” Brian says distractedly, grabbing a jar of olives at random and setting it out on the counter like he’d come in here for something in particular. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Harry says, slinging an arm around Brian’s shoulders.

Brian takes a deep breath. “Am I wearing pants?”

“Hm?” Harry asks, glancing down at Brian’s olive green cords. “You mean, like trousers, or like underwear? Because, um, you might want to ask my sister about the, uh, underwear bit.”

“No, like, trousers.” Brian looks down. “I didn’t think I owned a pair like these.”

“Well, you must,” Harry says, tugging on his belt loop. “I can tell you are a very healthy and well-rested individual, in case you were wondering.”

Brian laughs and rolls his head onto Harry’s shoulder. Harry squeezes his head in a hug. “Very well-rested,” he agrees. “They like my kid, though, huh?”

Harry hugs Brian’s head very tight. Too tight, maybe, based on the soft sound Brian makes. “Of course they do,” Harry says calmly. He pats Brian’s head. “She’s perfect and tiny and wonderful. Also, I wouldn’t have allowed them not to like her.”

“Zoe,” Brian says quietly. “That’s her name.”

Harry takes a moment. It’s funny, but it’s kind of silly, how unimportant names are. He hadn’t needed a name to love this kid, and now that she has one, it’s like nothing changed at all. “Zoe,” Harry just repeats. “I like it.”

Brian laughs. “Good. It took us two and a half months to pick this name, I don’t think we’d have gotten out alive with another.”

Anne cruises into the kitchen with Zoe tucked into the corner of her arm. “The aunties are about to start swinging, love, I’ve got to get back out there,” Anne says swiftly. She holds the baby out and Harry plucks her out of Anne’s arms before Brian snags her, lifting her in the air and dropping her back down again so that she makes a soft sound of displeasure.

“You should come on tour with the band,” Harry says impulsively. He meant to plan a proper pitch and everything, give Brian the facts and figures; he’s that kind of guy. But he’s looking down at the lilac veins traced through Zoe’s eyelids, and he can’t help himself. “I don’t know where we’re going yet, but you should all come. I’ll show you all the best places.”

Brian leans his hip against the counter, watching Harry with his baby. Harry cuddles her close to his chest, sniffing at the peach fuzz at the top of her soft head. She smells like baby powder and tearless soap and fabric softener. “You’re really doing it, then,” Brian says.

“What do you mean?”

Brian shakes his head. “Nothing. Just, Gemma wasn’t sure that you’d be ready to do it again. Not so soon, anyway, I suppose.” He touches the back of Zoe’s hand and her itty bitty fingers seize his finger.

“I’ll be around,” Harry says. “And we can call and Skype. I’m not, like, moving to the moon.”

Brian grins. “Yeah, right.”

Harry’s still thinking of it when he’s laying down to go to sleep that night on Gemma’s and Brian’s couch. He kicks off his grandma’s quilt and goes down the hall to check in on Zoe, who’s fast asleep. She gives a tiny twitch of her little head as she sleeps, her little hands curled into the smallest fists Harry has ever seen, but she doesn’t wake up.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Harry texts the group message, _We should bring our families to holiday with us._

Liam and Niall text back immediately. _God, yes,_ Liam sends, followed by Niall’s _sure !_

And then, in a private thread, Niall texts, _How is the baby?_

 _Her name is Zoe,_ Harry texts back. He takes a too-dark, grainy photo and sends it off anyway.

Faithful as ever, Niall texts back a succinct, _beautiful._

There’s no good reason for Harry to grin like the cat that ate the canary, but he draws up the rocking chair in the corner of the room to Zoe’s crib and falls asleep with a smug smile on his face.

***

“My arse hurts,” Niall greets Harry in the airport. He holds his hand out and Harry clasps it, and they go into one of those manly half-hugs.

Niall pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and Harry studies the lenses rather than Niall’s shoulders in his leather jacket or the flush on his cheeks. “Those are real, then?” Harry asks, tapping on the edge of Niall’s glasses.

Niall swats his hand away. “Yeah,” he sighs. “All those years of wearing these just for fun caught up to me.”

“Ironic,” Harry nods, and then he reclaims his seat in the lounge. Most airports are the same, really, even if they look completely different; Harry always remembers them by smell. This one smells like burnt popcorn and pine trees, so Harry knows it’s the London airport. An intercom overhead buzzes with the announcement of a flight, and Harry gathers his jacket around him, rummaging around his seat for the bag of yogurt-covered raisins he bought from the shop that sells overpriced phone chargers and books.

“Those look good,” Niall eyeballs his snack. “Where’d you get them?”

“The shop just up the way. Let me come with you,” Harry says, waving at the security guard. He gestures at their bags and the guard nods, tapping the earbud trailing wires down his collar. “I forgot to bring something to read.”

“The flight’s, like, an hour or two at best,” Niall points out. Security quietly forms up in front of and behind them, like they’re the middle cars in a train, and Harry sighs internally.

Harry says dryly, “Then you can wait to eat, can’t you?” and Niall laughs.

Harry’s poking around the contemporary literature section, wondering whether the romance novels on the next shelf over are any good, when Niall says gruffly, “Lookie here.” He’s holding Harry’s own book of his photographs, and Harry tries not to die of embarrassment or pleasure at the same time.

He’d spotted it on a table near the door when they walked in, and he’d tried not to make it obvious, because it’s so personal. The pictures inside that book are _so_ personal, Harry had to release them to everyone with twenty-five bucks to spend on a book. Thirty-five in an airport, with their jacked-up prices.

Niall cracks the book open and starts flipping through it while Harry’s standing _right there,_ watching him. He wants to ask Niall to put the damn thing away, and he wants desperately to know what he thinks. A couple of years ago, when the book first came out, Niall had called and left a message asking about coming to a book launch party, and Harry hadn’t answered. And then he stopped answering Niall’s calls altogether.

The book is such a big, heavy thing that Niall sets it on the edge of the table heaped with the latest selection of young adult novels next to them. Almost all of the photographs are in monochrome, too, and some of the pictures are even sixteen millimeter originals. Harry developed them himself in the spare room in his New York flat with blankets taped over the windows to block out all the light.

“These are so good,” Niall says, his fingers sliding over a glossy picture of Runyon Canyon that time it flooded so bad it seemed like the whole canyon might fill. That’s why Harry went out to take pictures, but of course the rain just drained out and into the river cutting through the limestone rocks down the valley. It’s still a good shot, like something out of a Raymond Carver novel.

Niall turns the page, studying the picture of Harry’s favorite vintage shop. He leafs through the pages while Harry tries not to breathe over his shoulder, jumping from the scenery section of the book to his portraits.

“Okay,” Harry says. “I think we should get what we came for and leave, right? We don’t want to miss our flight.”

But Niall already found the picture Harry was hoping he wouldn’t, or maybe hoping he would, he’s not sure. His face is obscured in the photograph, and the duvet is pulled up over the curve of his arse, so it’s not indecent, anyway, but. But for Harry, there’s no mistaking Niall fast asleep in his bed, his head pillowed on his arms, and Harry’s marker lines connecting the freckles on his shoulders into constellations.

“Is that –” Niall asks, and Harry nods once, jerky, his fingers plucking at the front of his jumper. Niall touches the picture with the tips of his fingers, his face unreadable.

“No one knows it’s you,” Harry says, unconsciously dropping his voice to a whisper. “No one. I –”

Niall closes the book. “It’s a really nice picture, Haz.”

“What?” Harry asks, his fingers at the ends of his hair now, pulling like he’s trying to get the curls out.

Niall puts the book back on the shelf where he found it, his face still unreadable. He looks like Bobby in some oblique way Harry can’t describe, except that he doesn’t look quite as much like sunshine as he normally does. Even without the blond hair. “C’mon, I still need to buy a snack.”

Harry buys a book off a table at random, and it’s not till he’s settling into his seat beside Niall on the plane that he realizes it’s a romance novel. He puts it away and pretends to sleep, instead, Niall too quiet beside him.

They land in Nice just when dusk is settling over the city in a haze of gold and gray House lights on the hills flicker on like children’s flashlights under a blanket, and the spring air is soft and sweet-smelling, like the crepes that curbside vendors fry, sizzling, just off the street. Harry rolls down the window of their taxi to see and smell it better, and he raises his phone to take a bunch of pictures: a little girl roller-skating up and down the same two-meter spread of sidewalk, and a couple kissing outside the doors to a patisserie, and an empty storefront that once used to sell bread, if the sign in the window is any indication.

Harry pulls his hands back into the taxi and studies the pictures on his phone. “I used to work in a bakery,” he says, almost out of habit, and Niall snorts. He’s slumped into his corner of the taxi, watching Harry with an expression on his face so familiar that Harry can’t figure out how he can’t place it. “Maybe that’s what I’ll do if the band doesn’t work out,” Harry says, like they’re sixteen and they’re not sure if the band will ever get anything more than that one single.

Niall props his head up on his hand. “I’ll come work for you,” he says. “I’ll make all the cupcakes.”

“Um, excuse me?” Harry says, dropping his hands into his lap. “What are you saying about my cupcakes?”

Niall shrugs. “Just that mine are better. They’re my specialty, you know.”

Harry narrows his eyes. “ _Excuze-moi,_ ” he tells the driver, and asks him to stop at a bodega so that they can buy the ingredients they need for cupcakes.

“This is my granny’s recipe,” Niall tells Harry, rolling up his sleeves in Harry’s hotel room in the Ritz. They’re headed down to the coast tomorrow to check out the rental properties they could use to record the new album, and Harry can’t wait to put his feet in the surf and watch the boats steam down the channel, or plan out the best place for a bonfire.

This is nice, too, though, Niall’s shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his glasses pushed up into his hair. He squints to read the tiny text on his phone, and Harry rolls his eyes and pushes Niall’s glasses down in front of his eyes.

“I’ll be using my own recipe,” Harry says, stretching his hands out in front of him with his fingers woven together so that they all pop at once. He shakes his hands out and starts dumping flour and sugar into his bowl, and then he adds a couple of eggs.

“You’re not going to measure?” Niall asks, holding a measuring cup in his hand.

Harry snorts. “Please. A real chef doesn’t measure. He _knows._ ”

Niall’s already started smiling. “Okay. I mean, say that when these are done baking and yours taste like baking soda, but sure.” Harry scowls.

Niall puts on a playlist while they cook, working in tandem quiet with Niall’s foot tapping out an absent rhythm on the thin hotel carpet. Harry hums along. “Wait,” he says, the glass bottle of vanilla poised over his mixing bowl. “Is this LP?”

Laughing, Niall says, “Took you long enough.”

Harry’s arm droops a little. “I worked on this album,” he says. “You heard this album? No one listened to this one.”

“I do,” Niall says shortly. “It’s good.”

“I begged her to put trumpets in over the verses, I – you listened to this?”

“Listen,” Niall corrects his verb tense. “It’s good,” he repeats.

Harry watches Niall’s brisk, efficient whisking, his arm and shoulder muscles flexing with it. He knows, now, that Niall kept up with him, in his own way. Harry turns back to his bowl slowly, pouring out just a couple of drops of vanilla into his batter. At least Niall hasn’t mentioned any of Harry’s lyrics, the songs he sold to other artists. He uses a nom de plume as often as he can, but he’s always worried that someone will hear one and know. Plus, H. Edward really isn’t all that…you know, mysterious.

Niall boosts himself up to sit on the counter after they slide their batches of cupcakes into the oven to bake at the same time. Harry picks up his phone and flips through Niall’s music library. He used to do this all the time; he used to use Niall’s phone almost as much as his own, actually. He has lots of Irish music in his library now, and a bunch of the albums Liam had pinned up to his wall that Harry assumes he must’ve worked on. Harry stops on Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, and hovers his thumb over the first track for a long moment. Then he hits play. The room fills with “Second Hand News.”

“Ah,” Niall grins, leaning back against the cabinets. “They played this at the show I went to ages and ages back.”

“They played it on their last tour, too,” Harry nods, because he went to three of the shows on their last and final tour.

Niall swings his foot against the cabinet, lightly, and Harry pats his foot without thinking about it. “Our own Mac songs,” Niall says, and Harry takes a choked little breath, laughs.

“We’ll do it this time, right?” Harry asks, leaning against the counter next to Niall’s legs. Niall’s face turns soft. “Here, you’ve got some flour,” Harry says, reaching out to thumb Niall’s cheek clean. He wouldn’t mind licking it off him, feeling Niall’s five o’clock shadow bristle under his tongue. He’s not allowed that anymore, though. He shouldn’t even think it, he could put the whole band at risk.

It doesn’t stop Niall from ducking in for a kiss. He tastes like the cupcake batter they both snuck samples of, sweet and light, like pureed strawberries. Harry can taste the granules of sugar on his tongue, and he wants to tell Niall that his cupcakes are going to be so much better, because he knows how to blend sugar. Harry pulls away from his mouth just long enough to lick the stripe of flour off Niall’s face, and then he leans back into the kiss with a smile.

Niall spreads his knees and Harry fits himself between Niall’s thighs, instead, Niall’s hand on the back of his neck angling his head just the way he wants. He still kisses the same way, with these light kitten licks along the seam of Harry’s lips before he takes the plunge and runs his tongue along the front of Harry’s teeth. Harry lets out a sound of satisfaction, tipping his head back so that Niall can smooth his palms down the column of Harry’s throat. He nudges his lips up behind Harry’s ear, kissing that spot that always made Harry’s eyes flutter shut, and Harry digs his fingers into the soft fabric over Niall’s thighs.

“You’re married,” Harry says, when Niall slides his hands down into the back pockets of Harry’s jeans and hauls him closer still. It’s not so much that Harry wants to be reminded of it, it’s that he’s afraid Niall has forgotten. And he’s never really been the type of bloke to cheat.  

Harry pulls his hands out of the back of Niall’s shirt and he spots the ring on his finger. The one that signifies a promise. _Someday, maybe_ , but this isn’t someday, not with the silver wedding ring on Niall’s hand, his wife probably at home in Ireland, going about her day thinking she can trust her husband. There’s no two ways about it; Niall’s definitely the bad guy in that situation.

Harry takes a deliberate step back from Niall and then another, since he’s still within arm’s length. Niall looks stunned, and his mouth is so red. A hectic flush has crawled up his cheeks and his throat, and it trails beneath the collar of his rucked-up shirt. His wide eyes are so blue.

“I can’t kiss you,” Harry says, because he’s trying to be good. It’s ridiculous, the way he’s more concerned with Niall than himself, but he still wants him to be the Niall he always thought he was. “This isn’t who you are, you don’t cheat.”

Niall slides off the counter and pads his way over to Harry, who closes his eyes. Niall runs his palms up Harry’s arms, his fingers tucked into Harry’s short sleeves. He’s so warm, and he smells far too much like his own cologne and cupcake batter and the chocolate-covered raisins they shared on the plane. “You’re right, I don’t, I –”

“You what?” Harry asks quietly. He wants to put his hands back on Niall’s hips and haul him in, get down on his knees and blow him here in the kitchen, which they definitely used to have a rule against. Harry can smell the cupcakes baking in the pans in the oven, and Stevie and Lindsey are still singing about “ _I know you’re hopin’ to find / Someone who’s gonna give you peace of mind / When times go bad_ ,” and he wants that moment desperately. Like something he could have all the time. Anytime.

“I…I’m sorry,” Niall says softly. “I should go.”

And, like, yeah, Harry wanted Niall to act like himself, but he didn’t want him to leave. He never wants Niall to leave.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Niall says, like he knows what’s going on inside Harry’s head, and with a light touch to Harry’s sleeve, he’s gone.

Harry pulls the cupcakes from the oven when the timer goes, and he sets the trays on the hob to cool. He can’t bring himself to eat any of them, so he leaves them on the baking sheets and puts a bit of tinfoil over the top. He’ll deal with it later. The next morning, Harry and Niall take the ten o’clock train down to the coast.

Louis called ahead and made the arrangements with the realtor, so Harry listens to her prattle on about the number of bedrooms and bathrooms this house has, the number of square feet, and wonders how soon he can tell her it’s not the one. They’ve been at it for the past two hours, driving back and forth all over the seaside villages just outside of Èze.

The first one hadn’t been close enough to the sea, the last one had been too close, on a cliff overlooking the whitecaps that smashed against the side of the rock, and this one is too small.

“ _Pardonez moi,_ ” Niall tries, grimacing at his own terrible French, and the lovely realtor nods and wanders off so that Niall and Harry can confer in private. “This isn’t the right place, is it?”

Harry just shakes his head. They need at least eight bedrooms just for people to sleep in, not including room to put their stuff, like their instruments and sound equipment. He wanders over to a window and peers out. This really is one of the most beautiful places he’s ever been, and the air smells so refreshingly of seawater that he could cry. He can’t wait to get his shirt off. “What’s that?” Harry asks, pointing down the coast a little ways.

Niall shrugs and calls for the realtor, and she says in heavily accented English, “It is an old ‘otel.”

“How old?” Harry asks, pressing his face to the glass.

The realtor, Maria, drives them down the road in her tiny, fuel-efficient European car, and they pull into the half-circle driveway of what must’ve once been a very old, posh hotel. It’s dilapidated now, with weeds shooting up between cracks in the cobblestone driveway and half of the siding peeling off of the house. “Great bones, though,” Harry murmurs, and he catches sight of Niall nodding along in his peripheral. “Can we take a look inside?”

“I don’t see why not,” Maria shrugs, “if you do not mind breaking in.” So they walk around to the back of the hotel to check if the door in the back garden is unlocked. The back garden gives way to a long stretch of white sandy beach, and then ocean waves the exact color of Niall’s eyes.

The back door isn’t unlocked, but the glass cutouts in the door are shattered, so Niall just sticks his hand through and unlocks the door. The inside looks even worse than the outside, with graffiti spray-painted onto the walls and a colorful mural of what Harry is pretty sure are dicks, but big bay windows in each room show the rolling waves, and it’s just off the main road to Nice, which will be nice for day trips. There’s enough room in the driveway for a half dozen cars, and this old hotel could easily sleep twenty.

Harry and Niall take the folder of potential houses that the realtor gives them. “They’re all good,” Harry acknowledges. “But, I don’t know. There was something about that last one.”

“Call Louis,” Niall advises. “We’ll see what he thinks.”

“There isn’t money in the budget for a demo, lads,” Louis says, when he gets the pictures Niall sent him from their impromptu tour of the dilapidated hotel. “I thought you said a bit of reno.”

“It’s the same thing, basically,” Harry says, from his perch on the rolling desk chair in Niall’s room. He’s afraid to sit on the bed next to him, so Niall has his phone on speaker. It rests on Niall’s stomach and rises up and down gently with his slow, deep breaths. “You should see this place, Louis. It’s beautiful.”

Louis sighs. “I’m sure it is, but my label isn’t Syco. We don’t have that kind of money.”

“I’ll cover it,” Harry says impulsively. Across the room, Niall picks up his head to look at him. “Whatever the budget doesn’t allow, I’ll pay for.”

“Me, too,” Niall says. “It’s a good tax write-off.”

“Well,” Louis starts. “If you lads are sure. What did Liam say? We’ll need to hire contractors and see if the reno can be done by the time we want to start work, and there’s the cost of the property to consider…” By the end of his sentence, Harry knows Louis has convinced himself that they’ll probably make a pretty penny buying and flipping this house. Harry bites his lip to hide his smile. Louis’s always been terrible with his money.

Niall sends the pics to Liam next, who responds, _have u been kidnapped??!_

“He’s all for it,” Harry says, rolling his eyes.

“Maria sent me the property details,” Louis says, his fingers clacking on the keyboard. “Looks like it’s settled, lads.”

Niall and Harry both cheer.

It turns out to be their last moment of peace for a long while.

***

Between re-upping his contract to Sony, stepping out of some of his engagements with other artists, and finishing the songs he’d swore he’d sell to his good friends, Harry hardly has a chance to breathe before he’s packing his bags to head to the coast with the rest of the lads. Zoe is nestled on Harry’s pillow beside his open suitcase, her wide eyes blinking irregularly. Harry keeps taking breaks from packing to touch her hand or coo into her face or count her toes. It’s hard labor, is what it is.

Gemma watches from the chair in the corner, her long hair tied back in a sloppy bun. She has her head propped up in her hand, and the tone of her voice is as wry as it’s ever been. “And that’s it?” Gemma asks. “He kisses you, you remind him that he’s married, and you’re just friends again, la-di-da?”

“I mean,” Harry thinks, scooping up Zoe when Rumour leaps onto his bed so that she won’t be jostled too much. The baby makes a soft sound, and Harry lets Rumour get close, sniffing all over her. She cries when Rumour moves away. “We’ll never be just friends again, I guess, but, like. Exes. Amicable exes.”

“So you don’t still want to suck his face?” Gemma asks, her toes prodding Harry’s bum.

Harry swats his sister’s feet away. “What’s the point?” Harry asks. Part of him is always going to be in love with Niall. Even when he was totally devastated by him, and he had to move out of LA because his house was full of the way Niall smelled and the way his neck looked when water from his shower ran down from his hair into the hollows of his collarbones; even then, Harry loved him.

And, like. If the reason he married someone else is because he just doesn’t want Harry, well. He’d rather not hear Niall tell him so. That’s what it means, that Niall married someone else just a couple of years after they broke up, right? So he can just assume, and he and Niall can be friends, and Harry can pretend he’s got an ounce of dignity left.  

“But I get the band back, right?” Harry asks Zoe softly, hefting her in his arms. She has such clear eyes for such a little baby, intent, like she’s listening and hearing. “I can have the band.”

“Not sure it works like that, little brother,” Gemma says softly, her eyes so like her baby’s; big and soft and caring.

Harry sits heavily in her lap, Zoe still gathered in his arms. Gemma _oofs_ , and Harry settles in more comfortably. “You’ll come soon, though, right?” he asks.

“As soon as we can,” Gemma assures him, clasping her fingers together over his stomach.

Harry is third to arrive at the house in Èze. Liam and Sophia arrived first, and Niall is just unloading his own taxi from the train station when Harry’s pulls up. Niall waits for him to gather his things at the kerb, and then they troop toward the house together with an awkward nod. Rumour brushes around Harry’s knees, sniffing at the driveway and Niall’s sneakers and his bag. His tail wags back and forth, and Niall runs his hand through the dog’s soft, silky fur.

Niall keeps his chin to his chest, steadfastly avoiding the sight of Harry, so Harry presses the pad of his thumb to the ring on his finger. “Niall, wait,” he says, before they press the bell and Liam lets them in.

“What?” Niall asks, looking up with an expression on his face Harry remembers from all the times they’d tried to get him to get a tattoo. Harrowed, like, and decided. There’s something else about it, too, something he recognizes better from a mirror. He’s not quite sure what it is.

The look on his face gives Harry pause. He swallows hard. “Just, I want to make sure we’re good. Are we good?” Harry casts his eyes up at the cloudless blue sky over the south of France. “You know. Friends. Bandmates.”

“Yeah, Haz,” Niall says, his voice raspy. He pulls Harry in with a hand on the back of his neck, and they share an almost not-awkward hug. It’s a little awkward. Mostly because Harry would really, really like to shove his face into the side of Niall’s neck. He tries not to feel lost when Niall lets him go.  

“C’mon,” Niall says. He turns around and heads for the door. Harry feels like he might’ve done more harm than good, but he can’t figure out how. Niall presses his finger to the doorbell, and inside the house, Liam’s and Sophia’s giant horse of a dog starts barking. Rumour’s ears go flat against his head, and then his mouth drops open, his tail wagging quickly.

Liam opens the door with a smile, and Harry lets Rumour off his leash the moment they cross the threshold. He rockets toward where his heightened doggy senses must be telling him Watson is. Liam pulls Niall and Harry into a hug, and they don’t even knock their heads together. Sophia hugs them next, her slender arms smelling of expensive perfume.

“We had a lot of work to do,” Liam tells them as he leads them through the renovated hotel and into the back garden. There’s a nice round patio table with an umbrella over on the back porch, and stone benches up against the wall. There’s even a wooden rocking chair that creaks, ever so gently, when the sea breeze rocks it. The back garden has been replanted with new crabgrass that rolls right up to a cliff just a few dozen meters high, and zigzagging staircases cut into the rock lead down to the coast, where waves wash against the shore.

“Do we have to work?” Harry asks, and Niall and Liam laugh.

“We had to move all the furniture around,” Liam says, subtly rolling his eyes – Sophia still thwacks his knee – “and we brought all of our kitchen stuff so you can cook, although we’ve been sorting through the old staff records. We’re bringing back some of the kitchen and cleaning staff, right?”

Harry and Niall nod. He’d been surprised when Louis forwarded him his part of the bill, although he’s got a good financial investor, so it’s not too hard to foot. And now that he’s here, he can definitely see that it’ll be worth it. Harry can already tell he’s going to have some trouble selling it at the end of their stay. He’s thinking of selling his house in LA, though. Just for some extra wiggle room, so he won’t have to cash out any stocks. Maybe it’s time to give up on that house, anyway.

Sophia takes over, “And of course, stuff like blankets for the beds and extra lightbulbs for all the fixtures, bath towels and sunscreen and washing detergent,” and Harry keeps nodding as she ticks things off on her fingers. He’s so not detail-oriented enough for stuff like that.

“When do the others get here?” Niall asks, leaning forward to accept the beer Liam passes him from the outdoor cooler. Liam passes Harry a sweet apple cider, and Harry gives a soft, “Cheers,” and pops the cap off.

Liam shrugs. “I don’t know when your families are getting here, I reckoned they were going to trickle in. Mine won’t be here for a couple of weeks. Niall, I’m surprised Aisling didn’t come, is she feeling well?”

“Eh,” Niall starts, picking at the paper wrapper on his beer bottle, and moves on, “What about Louis?”

“Louis is here,” Louis says, stumbling out onto the back porch. His duffel bag swings from his shoulder and when it plops to the ground, he just leaves it there.

Niall’s eyebrows go up. “Louis is also totally sloshed,” Niall observes, Harry leaning into his shoulder without realizing it until he hears Niall’s voice so close in his ear.

Liam leaps to his feet, his arms open to usher Louis into a hug.

Louis stumbles into the seat beside Harry, his head almost landing in Harry’s lap before he rights himself. “There were drinks on the plane,” he says. “You lads know how I hate flying.” Louis focuses his eyes on each of them in turn, Harry leaning that much more into Niall just because the look in Louis’s eyes is so cutting. He gets like that when he’s drunk, sometimes.

“Glad to see you lot again,” is all Louis says before he passes out in the chair next to Harry. His head tips back, and he starts snoring.

Liam stares at Niall and Harry. “Did you know?” he demands.

“Well,” Harry starts uncertainly.

“Don’t start in on him,” Niall warns Liam off, when Liam opens his mouth to ream Harry out. “Maybe we should just make it a rule, like. No drinking on this holiday.” He grimaces at himself. “We’ll just distract him with work.” 

“No offense, Nialler,” Liam says, pushing his hands through his curly hair, “but I think that might be something that only works with you.”

Maybe it’s because of Louis, or maybe it’s because Niall wants to prove Liam wrong, or maybe it’s just because they’re all so overeager to work, but they get to work before five o’clock in the afternoon the next day. That’s not bad for Harry, who has an almost debilitating case of jetlag, or Louis, who spent most of the last night puking. He still gets the worst hangovers; Harry’s not sure how he hasn’t learned by now.

They all have sound equipment, so they shipped a bunch of it to their villa in France. They’ve put it all into the ballroom with these wide windows facing the ocean, and the first twenty minutes feel like magic, it’s so good to be jamming with the boys again.

Then Niall breaks a string, so they pause to fix it, and Liam keeps experimenting with these vocal runs over the tune that Louis is plonking out on the piano. Harry’s sympathetic to Louis’s twisted grimace.

Liam suggests they try jamming over a drum loop, so he queues one up on a computer and they start working out lyrics. They each brought tons of stuff, Louis and Liam on their laptops, Niall on his iPad, Harry in his journal. They start with some of Louis’s lyrics because he was always their primary writer, but they don’t as tight as they used to, or as relevant, or something.

They just can’t…find their rhythm. And that’s the way it stays for two weeks.

“I’m going for a drink,” Louis says. “I’ve been cooped up here with you three,” he points to Niall, Harry, and Liam in turn, “for too long. And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I’m just about driven to drinking meself,” Niall admits. “How about I come with you?”

“Uh, no thanks, Nialler,” Louis says, pushing back his chair at the breakfast table. Eight days into their holiday, when it became clear that things were not quite going as planned, they agreed to postpone their families’ visits. They’re reaching the end of their grace period, though, and it’d be nice to feel like they had something to show, something held over, from their time together.

Harry scratches his head. “Maybe that’s what we all need,” he suggests. “We’ll go out and have a few drinks, and then we can come back here when we’re…looser.”

“Yes!” Louis cheers. He claps Harry on the back, and, for fear of looking at Niall’s and Liam’s faces, Harry goes with it. Louis lets him, as well, all the way to their table at a pub just up the road with a giant picture of Cary Grant on the wall. “Take a shot, baby,” Louis tells Harry, pushing a glass of tequila across the table. Liam keeps trying to talk to him, whisper in his ear about “enabling an addict,” and Niall hasn’t stop scowling at him since they arrived in this French town, so Harry agrees.

It was ages ago since Harry and Louis were able to be friends, but he’s still surprised that he forgot how much Louis can drink. Harry keeps pace with him, forgetting his own dubious tolerance, until they’re propped up by nothing but each other while the sound system inside the club blares Selena Gomez’s new album so loud even Niall is half-covering his ears.

“My lad!” Louis says, toasting his drink against Harry’s. He puts his face in Harry’s hair, which is so bizarre that Harry lets him do it. “My son,” he says, his eyes turning misty.

“Um,” says Harry. “I’m not Fred?”

Louis just pats his back. “There you are, little lad, keep drinking,” Louis says, accidentally emptying his glass on Harry’s head.

“I think,” Harry says, touching the top of his head. He starts smiling. “Louis,” he says. “You just poured out your drink on my head.”

“Oh,” Louis blinks. He starts smiling, too. “That I did.” When he starts laughing, Harry does, too, till they’re both bent double inside their booth, Harry laughing so hard that his breath aches in his chest and tears burn in his eyes.

Liam has turned sad since he started drinking. “Maybe we’re just too old, lads,” he suggests. “Maybe we’re not meant to be a band anymore.”

Niall, rolling his glass between his palms, says nothing.

“Not true,” Louis declares, signaling to the bartender – or maybe it’s the bartender, it could really be almost anyone, to be fair – for another round. “The problem is that you’re all taking this too seriously.”

“You could do to take it a bit more seriously,” Liam snaps, the first time Harry’s heard him be sharpish with Louis in a good six or seven years. “For Christ’s sakes, Louis, your label’s going under.”

Louis sits up straight, dragging Harry, by default, with him. “Who told you that?”

“I did,” Niall says quickly, his palms flat against the table. “I asked around, Lou,” he adds lowly.

“This,” Harry says, slouching onto the booth until his head is propped up on Louis’s thigh, “is not a good place for this.”

“No, I think it’s the perfect place,” Liam says smartly, so Harry holds his hands to his face like he’s taking a picture and starts making shutter noises. “That’s the truth, isn’t it, Louis? Without One Direction you’ll have nothing. No work, and certainly no kids, with the way you’ve been, a father just like –” He stops short.

Harry hears Louis take a deep breath. “A father like who?” he asks, deathly quiet, his voice cutting straight through the thumping bass and the peoples’ screams inside this club.

“Lou,” Harry says soft, a warning, and Louis just pats his cheek. “He didn’t mean it.”

“Maybe he did,” Niall says. “None of us have been doing – we’re not, uh,” he stops to reconsider. “We do better together,” Niall says slowly, so that Louis’s hand drops onto the top of Harry’s head and scratches through his scalp. Some of the pissiness even goes out of Liam’s face.

Harry studies the underside of Louis’s jaw. If he turns his head, he can see Liam’s and Niall’s laps under the table. The powerful desire seizes him to crawl under the table, fit himself between Niall’s knees again. He’s missed blowing him, to be completely, painfully honest. “I have a confession,” Harry begins, his voice low.

“Shut up,” Louis says, smothering Harry with his free hand. His palm tastes like sweat and margarita, and Harry scrunches up his face and pushes Louis away. He starts to slide off the booth and Louis catches him, manhandles him up until he’s slumped over onto the table. “He needs to get to bed.”

“So do we all,” Liam sighs. “So much for this making things looser.”

“I can’t walk,” Harry says, when they exit the club and enter the muggy French evening. Night, it’s night now. Harry starts to go boneless, like an overcooked noodle slowly drooping to the ground. “I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying,” Niall snorts softly. He reaches out and squeezes Harry’s hand, the one with the ring on, and Harry could cry, he wants to hug him so bad.

Liam sallies forth and kneels with his back to Harry. “Climb on, my monkey friend,” he sighs, so Harry wraps his arms around Liam’s neck and wraps his legs around his waist. Liam has a bouncy walk, so Harry’s cheek keeps getting jabbed by Liam’s shoulder, but it’s a nice ride, for all that. He could even fall asleep.

Niall holds Louis up, Louis’s walk all over the uneven kerb. They must look a right mess, like the washed-out boybanders they were always afraid of becoming. Funny, how it’s turned out not to be so bad. Worse than he hoped, but not as bad as he feared. Liam’s hair tickles his cheek, and he can smell his detergent, something soapy and clean. Sophia must’ve washed this before she went back to the UK for work. The others look away from the sloping stone-paved roads of Èze. The roofs of houses and the lights inside windows are all different colors, so that it feels a bit like Christmas.

Liam carries Harry to bed. Harry rolls over the mattress, the blankets and sheets not pulled back, his shoes still on. He’s not quite comfortable. “Liam,” Harry says softly. Liam turns and looks over his shoulder. “D’you really think we might not make it?” he asks, remembering Liam with flat-ironed hair. He remembers the nervous smile Liam used to wear all the time, especially around Louis, who tormented him out of a desire to get Liam to like him.

The Liam from back then would’ve said, “Of course we will, we’ve just got to work at it.” This Liam says, “Dunno, mate.” He hesitates in the doorway, looking as though he’d like to say more, but then he just knocks twice and leaves.

Harry lays awake for twenty minutes, watching the clock on his bedside table slowly count away the time. Then he throws his legs over the side of the bed and stumbles down the hall to Niall’s room, where he knocks and pushes the door open.

“Oh,” Harry says, seeing Niall sat at the foot of his bed in just his pants, “I should’ve waited. Hold on.” He steps backs and knocks again, and this time he waits for Niall to say, “Come in.”

Harry sags against the doorframe, watching Niall pull an acoustic guitar across his lap and start strumming the strings. Harry stumbles the rest of the way in for a better look, and to hear better. Harry’s room is an explosion of color with his wardrobe spread all over the room and his tatty boots on the windowsill, a heap of books leaning against the wall at the foot of his bed. His suitcase is open so that he can see all of the headbands he’s started to wear again, and he likes his teacups strewn about, the china pattern is so pretty.

Niall’s room is a lot neater; his duvet is white, like his sheets, and his suitcase is packed away into his closet so that his clothes must be neatly folded in the sandy-colored wooden chest of drawers against the wall. His trainers are lined up in a neat row beside the door, and he has a handful of printed shirts hanging from the top of his closet.

“I like it in here,” Harry says, letting his head loll back against the wall from his perch on the soft piece of furniture that might be a weird, armless sofa, or an end table.

Niall glances up at him from under his brows, his lips pursed ever so slightly. “Thanks,” Niall just says.

Harry props his head up with his elbow on the bureau beside him. Niall glances up, catching sight of himself in the mirror, and then at Harry. “D’you remember,” Harry asks, watching Niall tune his guitar, “that time we watched Pleasantville and I drove us to a make-out point?”

Niall laughs softly. “And the cops found us.”

“I almost killed you,” Harry reminds him, remembering landing hard on Niall’s bum knee so that he almost screamed in pain, his lips pressed together so hard it looked like it hurt. “And the next morning,” Harry goes on, thinking of Niall in bed beside him, “I made pancakes.”

“Really good to me, you were,” Niall agrees, his smile light.

“I loved you,” Harry said. “I couldn’t say it then and I shouldn’t say it now, but I loved you.”

Niall plays a bum note, his shoulders tense, the hollows above his collarbones very deep. “Harry…”

“That first time you ever sang ‘Where Do Broken Hearts’ go for me, and I – I liked your voice more than mine, really, I was so glad we were in the band together. That time we went camping and we almost got killed by a bear. I would’ve let the bear kill me for you,” he says seriously. Harry slides the claddagh ring off his finger and holds it out to Niall. “Sorry I wasn’t ready in time,” he says.

“That’s it?” Niall asks quietly. He has the haggard look of a person coming down fast, sobriety in the lines beside his mouth and the crinkles by his eyes. He’s aging well, just like Harry always thought he would.

Harry hums. “No. I’m just done pretending I’m ever not going to be in love with you.” Or like he can put it on pause, like taking the needle off a record and letting it spin round without playing a song. The record is still turning, whether anyone can hear it or not.

Niall curls the ring in his palm, looking up at Harry with the most familiar eyes Harry’s ever seen. “I couldn’t have gotten married if you hadn’t come. I knew from the moment I called you, but I – she’d told her family. I couldn’t do it.” Niall turns the ring between his fingers.

“I wanted you to be happy,” Harry says softly. He can still remember Niall and Aisling waltzing on their wedding day while the band played a Patti Smith song, and the way Niall looked at her. He was so good at buoying them up, but he’d probably always been the most deliberate.

Harry always thought he’d be great at commitment if he ever found someone to commit himself to.

“And now you are,” Harry says. “Happy, I mean.” And Harry has the band, and that’s enough. It’s enough, enough, enough. Harry has to stop expecting so much more. He pushes himself up, rubbing his palms over his knees. They feel like they should’ve been sweating, but he sniffs, and finds that they’re dry.

Niall tips his head back to look up at him. “Harry, I’m getting divorced.”

Harry’s legs go weak, and he sits back down fast. “Oh.” Harry tries to remember the last time he saw Aisling. He recalls the last time he was at Niall’s house, and it’d looked so barren and empty. She’d probably moved out by then, and that was _ages_ ago.

Niall leans back and roots around in the drawer of his bedside table. The drawer drags a little on the way out, and it’s such a perfectly ordinary sound. Niall hands a manila envelope to Harry, who robotically opens it and tilts the documents out onto his hand. He realizes why Niall’s lawyer sounded familiar months ago, in his house in London. Chris mentioned using the same divorce lawyer ages and ages back.

Harry looks down at the pages in his hands. Aisling signed her bit, and so has Niall. He’s used his real-life handwriting, not his loopy fan signature handwriting. Harry traces it with the tip of his finger, remembering Niall signing his birthday cards like this every year, usually under the inscription, “ _Love you, nutter,_ ” and sometimes with a gift as stupid as the mug with the picture of Niall on the toilet on.

He can imagine Niall’s neat handwriting on his and Aisling’s marriage certificate, as well, and it’s so sad all of a sudden that that’s what does it. A signature and it’s begun, another and it’s over. Harry thinks about all the birthday cards he’ll have done for Aisling, and the notes he left on the fridge telling her he’d gone up the road to Bressie’s, and all the moments in between.

“I’m so sorry,” Harry says, putting the divorce papers back into the envelope and handing them back to Niall. Niall tosses it behind him, onto the bed.

Niall looks up at Harry like he wants to tell him something, but suddenly Harry is afraid of what he might say. Niall fidgets with his hands in his lap and all Harry can think of is the flush on his throat and his wide blue eyes the last time they kissed, and how he’d known then but he hadn’t said anything. “Can I sleep here tonight?” Harry asks impulsively. The walk back to his own room feels so long. And it’d be awful to leave Niall like this, looking so tired and sad at the edge of his bed, his guitar tilted onto the floor.

Niall stops chewing on his cuticles. His hands drop to his lap, and he looks up at Harry almost hopefully. “What?”

Harry stands up, kicking out of his boots. He curls up on top of Niall’s bright white duvet fully clothed, his mouth tasting of all the booze Louis ordered him. “Just,” he says sleepily. “If it’s okay,” he yawns. “Plus, Rumour keeps edging me off the bed.”

“Sure, Harry,” Niall says softly. Harry barely stirs when Niall’s careful hands pull the blankets out from under him and tuck him in, and when he feels Niall slide into the other side of the bed, he doesn’t reach out to touch him. It’s enough just to have him there.

***

Rumour wakes Harry up long before he’s ready. Rumour’s tail wags so hard that the whole mattress moves with it, and his breath is hot and dog food-smelling in Harry’s face. “Oh, my God, okay,” Harry groans. “Christ.” He levers himself up until he’s sitting upright, even though his head feels like a chicken laid an egg in there, and his stomach turns to water. Harry can almost imagine he can feel the tequila worm sluicing around at the bottom of his belly.           

Niall isn’t beside him in bed, and when Harry cocks his head and listens, he can’t hear him in the loo, either. Harry runs his fingers through Rumour’s silky fur, and then he bites his lip and shrugs, ignoring the way it makes his pounding headache that little bit worse.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Harry tells Rumour. It’s taken him a good fifteen minutes to hobble down the stairs and get the door to the back garden open so that Rumour can go out and pee, and he lingers in the doorway for a moment. He closes his eyes. The air smells of sea water and flowers in bloom, and if Harry holds very still, his stomach starts to feel like it’s not trying to escape from his body.

For some reason he can’t explain, Harry leaves the back door ajar for Rumour and goes to the ballroom, where their music setup is. He sits down heavily on the piano bench, grabbing his journal from where it’s sat on top of the piano and dragging it over to himself.

Harry’s nan had a piano in her sitting room. It wasn’t a fancy piano, it was just a little upright with at least five keys wildly out of tune. Harry used to play under it when he was very small and listen to her arthritic hands pluck out the melody to songs he’s never learned, sure that she must’ve played them her own way. Whatever the right way is, he doesn’t want to know it.

He figured, when he got famous and the money started pouring in, he’d buy himself a real piano, like Anne talked about them having after Des left, when it was the three of them in their little quiet house.

And then he hadn’t really lived anywhere, so he never bought the piano, and then he’d sort of forgotten about it. It felt like something that belonged to part of another life, a domestic one, with loud Sunday mornings with pans of eggs and bacon, cartoons blaring on the telly. Anyway. Another life.

“You look about as good as I feel,” Louis says, from where he’s laid out under the piano. Harry gives a yelp of surprise and draws his knees up to his chest, and then he has to keel forward and put his head down on the keys, the notes jangling, so that he doesn’t literally die.

Louis climbs onto the bench beside Harry’s slowly, like a sloth. “Hangovers keep getting worse with age,” Louis observes, polishing off a glass of something he left on the floor. He smacks his lips. “I think there was a fly in that.”

Harry retches. “Please, stop,” he begs him, and Louis settles back in his seat with a faint smile. Harry stares at Louis with the curious lack of self-consciousness that hungover people have a pass for, and Louis stares back at him with the same frank curiosity. It’s a little stunning that Louis is looking directly at him, to be honest, and without flinching away.

“Be honest,” Louis says, his eyes boring into Harry. “Am I doing a shit job as a dad?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says. “Do you think you are?”

Louis’s chin drops to his chest, and he lets out a strangled laugh. He picks out a tune on the piano, a melody Harry recognizes from “Walking in the Wind.” “This isn’t what I expected when we made that album,” Louis admits. “We were so hopeful. Shit,” he laughs softly, and it sounds a little hard and bitter, like the calcium build-up on the sink in Bobby’s house. It sounds ever so slightly like a sob.

Harry clears his throat. They’d been so full of big plans, and hopes, and he’s not sure any of them lived up to it. Maybe that’s the point, after all this time. Not that they actually succeeded, but that they always thought they could. Harry always thought they could do anything, everything, together. “Do you remember,” he starts, “how you used to say you’d look around on stage, and see four other blokes, and you’d be like, ‘where’s the fifth one?’”

“Yeah,” Louis says softly. His fingers tap out a gentle melody.

“I think, like,” Harry licks his lips, piecing it together as he goes, like driving in the dark. The headlights only reach so far, so you just keep driving, trusting that the road goes on. “That was always it, you know? We were – we’re not, like, I don’t know.” Harry laughs self-deprecatingly. “We were something… _better_ together, when it was all of us, not just one or two.”

Louis looks at Harry like he used to when they were friends, and it makes something deep inside of him ache with loss. “Don’t tell anybody I told you this,” Louis says, “but I missed you.”

Harry tucks his smile into his collar. “I won’t tell,” he promises, like they’re teenagers, and Louis’s filling him in on all the naughty things he got up to with his girlfriend at the time.

“There you lads are,” Liam says, his voice echoing in the ballroom. He and Niall step in, Niall’s boots clicking on the marble floor. Plastic bags of takeaway dangle from their hands, and Harry spots donuts, and tacos. Liam holds up the food. “We brought your hangover cure.”

“Let me just go puke,” Louis says brightly.

They eat on the floor like children, even though there’s a full kitchen just down the hall. “I think my favorite part of the night,” Niall is saying, glazed sugar on his cheek, “was when Louis tried to get the bouncer to fight him.”

“Well, my favorite bit was when Liam and Harry started their own interpretive dance class in the middle of the club,” Louis sniffs, and Harry cackles, remembering Liam’s awkward expression. Bless him, but he did pick Harry up off the floor when he fell over.

Liam wipes his fingers on his jeans when he’s done eating, Harry’s stomach terrifyingly full of greasy takeaway. “What do you say, lads?” Liam asks. “Once more, just for fun?”

He pushes himself to his feet and goes to sit at the computer station, where he has his sound mixing software installed. He queues up a drum loop, and Louis picks out a melody, and Harry cracks open one of his journals. Niall’s fingers stroke the guitar strings.

Niall looks up with a grin. “Let’s have it, eh?”

They jam out for a bit, the instruments sounding like they might belong to the same album, if not quite the same song, at least. And it’s just fun, no pressure or expectations. They’re just…playing. Because they can. Harry and Louis duet on the lyrics in his songbook and it’s like it all snaps together at once, Liam’s preferred synth sound and Niall’s fingerpicking and the song Harry wrote on a train once, when he was just trying to kill time, really.

It’s a song about packing, of all things, the suitcase he had hefted onto the rack at the top of his compartment. George Ezra had an album called _Wanted on Voyage_ , and Harry could understand his interest in the things you take with you when you go and the things you leave behind. The song takes on new meaning now with the people Harry would take with him anywhere, everywhere.

And it’s not work anymore, or difficult, to make music with the other lads. Niall and Liam pick up the chorus by the second go round and all their voices but Niall’s sound a little out of practice, a lot like a bunch of lads just having a good time. They call it “Perhaps,” after a poem Harry read once, and that’s how they start the new album.

The room echoes with the song at the end of the last verse, their voices still ringing in Harry’s ears. “Just like that?” he asks, not quite knowing he means.

Liam laughs, and then Louis, and even Niall gives in with a soft laugh. “S’pose so,” he says, and the look on his face is like the visual version of a group hug. Harry beams back at him.

Harry goes back to his journal, turns the page, and clears his throat. “Another one?”

Niall strokes the strings, Liam fiddles with the bass on his laptop, and Louis hits a bunch of random piano keys. “Let’s do it,” Louis says, so Harry pushes the lyric book over, and they start again.


	2. in places we've never been

Their renovated mansion starts to feel like it must have a revolving door, with the number of family members that pour in. Liam’s parents arrive first, and Karen bursts into tears the moment she sees her son with his old bandmates. She clutches Harry to her breast and cries into his hair, and Harry just pats her back, waiting for it to be over. Sophia returns, as well, and Liam instantly settles into himself better.

Niall invited Eoghan, so of course he brings an entire entourage of beautiful chipper Irish people with loud voices and sharp accents, most of whom settle in the east wing of the house. They smell like the champagne they’d been drinking on the plane and Harry is pleasantly surprised to find he recognizes lots of them, even Laura and Bressie come along for a few days here and there, when they can afford time off. Niall doesn’t say anything about his ex-wife.

Gemma and Brian arrive with Zoe one bright Sunday morning, when the house has fallen into a permanent tip with Irish people passed out on all the spare sofas and an endless supply of misplaced socks trailing down the halls like gingerbread crumbs.

Harry’s waiting outside for her when Louis taps on his shoulder, and then he settles himself beside Harry on the swinging bench on the front porch. Harry scoots over to make room for him that’s not covered in pollen from the flowering tree hanging over the front garden, and Louis sits down beside him slowly.

“You alright?” Harry asks.

Louis nods. “Got a pounding headache, and I dunno why.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Actually, it’s probably because I haven’t had a drink.” Louis looks round at Harry almost nervously, pride in the curve of his lips. “For like, four days, actually. Not that I’m counting.”

“Four days!” Harry whoops, looping an arm around his neck and pulling him close so that he can knuckle over Louis’s messy brown hair. Louis tenses up and Harry lets go slowly, patting him apologetically on the shoulder. “Sorry.”

Louis can’t quite stop himself smiling when he says, “Yeah, well. Shut the fuck up.”

Harry smiles down at the journal open in his lap. They’re still working through the heaps of old material that all four of them brought to this house, which Karen tearfully named the Bungalow, but Harry can’t stop writing more. It’s too much of an ingrained habit, really, his thoughts only ever really making sense on the page in verses.

Or in photographs. He’s had his old sixteen millimeter out to snap pictures of Niall with his hands on his hips, watching Louis pluck out a tune on the piano with his guitar strapped over his stomach, or Liam scratching his head on the sofa they dragged into the ballroom with a pencil behind each ear. The fun thing about those, though, is that he can’t see them till he’s developed them. It’s just different, like.

“D’you think Bri will let you bring the kids over?” Harry asks, before he loses the nerve.

Louis makes a face. “Maybe…”

Harry thinks back to the few times he ever met Briana. Sometimes he’d go over to Louis’s to pick him up or drop him off for a Moonlights rehearsal, and Briana would be there. Back when they were still sharing a house, that is. She’d always seemed so sweet and smart. Harry wonders how the members of his boyband always manage to snag women way too good for themselves, and then he thinks of Niall, and he gives a little cough.

Watching Louis hem and haw, though, Harry narrows his eyes. “Is there something else?” he asks.

Louis jumps and makes the most innocent face he can manage, which Harry knows for sure is a hell yes.

“Awful,” Harry decides, watching Louis pop a piece of chewing gum into his mouth. “You’re terrible.”

“Well, at least I’m not in love with my own bandmate,” Louis says smartly.

“Does Liam know that?” Harry snarks back fast, too fast to think about what Louis is implying.

Louis just rolls his eyes and stands up, ruffling Harry’s hair. A turquoise van pulls into the driveway, and Harry just knows it’s Gemma. He cranes his head back to look up at Louis. “Come out with the Èze Irish Crew tonight,” he says. “We’re going to the pubs.”

“Sure,” Harry says, shading his eyes to watch the van approach, twin fantails of dust kicked up in its wake. Louis pads back into the house in his mismatched sock, one of which Harry is almost sure is Niall’s.

He trots down the drive to greet Gemma and Brian, who park their van behind the circus caravan of cars the band’s family members have already collected: an efficient silver Honda, an expensive sports car, two black Range Rovers, and a Moped. Harry shakes hands with Brian, and then Gemma pulls him into a hug. “Get us inside and I’ll let you hold my baby,” she tells Harry crisply, so Harry pinches her arm and goes to follow orders.

Niall finds him half an hour later, when Gemma and Brian have changed into their swimsuits and gone down to join the others at the pool. Harry’s rocking Zoe slowly in his arms, her eyelids growing heavier and heavier with every pass.

Her little mouth works over the pink dummy, and Harry’s just waiting to catch it when she falls asleep and her mouth goes slack. Anne used to joke that they worried Harry might swallow his in his sleep, his mouth was so big. It makes Harry smile thinking of it, stroking Zoe’s soft forehead with his fingertip.

“Is she asleep?” Niall asks softly, leaning against the doorway.

“Almost,” Harry answers. He nods Niall in, so Niall tiptoes across the creaky wooden floorboards and comes to peer down at the baby in Harry’s lap. He’s sat right in front of the window, his his shoulders blocking the warm golden sunlight from bothering Zoe.

Harry hasn’t bothered with a shirt today – or most days, as he can help it – and the sunlight is warm on his back, sloping over his shoulders. “She looks like you,” Niall observes softly, almost but not quite touching Zoe’s tiny fist. “Like an angel.”

“I want one,” Harry admits in a rush. He bites his lip, steadfastly not looking up at Niall, whose touch is so light and gentle on Gemma’s baby’s hand.

“You’d be a good dad.”

Harry’s heart fills to bursting. He looks up with a beaming smile on his face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Niall agrees. He sits down slowly on the footrest in front of the rocking chair, his elbows on his knees. He keeps twisting his hands together in his lap. “So, like. Tomorrow, if you’re not busy, there’s this vegetarian place up the road, and, like. I don’t know, if you wanted to go? It could be good.”

“Okay,” Harry says easily. If he leans forward just a little bit, he can see the freckle right below Niall’s ear and smell the Tide detergent he uses on his clothes and the salty sea water from his swim earlier. It’s just. It’s not wrong anymore, technically, to like the way Niall smells or like being able to see him all the time. Harry’s taking advantage of it while he can.

Niall looks surprised for a moment, then, “Really? Great.” He stops to drop a kiss to Zoe’s forehead like he knows what that’ll do to Harry, and then he pats Harry’s cheek and leaves just as quietly as he came in.

Harry glances down at Zoe, and he finds that she’s fast asleep. 

***

Harry hasn’t “pre-gamed” before going out since he was a teenager, and that’s only because Grimmy and his lot insisted that a party didn’t start until 11pm at the earliest. And then it wasn’t even technically pre-gaming, it was just being sat around with a Jack and Coke that Douglas or one of them lads poured for him and waiting to go to the club so he could get something actually drinkable, like a Sex on the Beach or a Long Island Iced Tea. You know, something that doesn’t burn your taste buds off.

Anyway, the LIC prove to be big fans of pre-gaming at the Bungalow before heading out to the pubs. In addition to Laura, Eoghan, and Bressie, Harry’s tagging along for the ride; so are Niall, Liam and Louis, and at Gemma’s insistence, Brian.

“Get up,” Harry tells Brian, who’s been sat on the couch in the living room since the LIC corralled everyone together and started feeding them shots of Jaeger. Harry squints to see straight. He’s not nearly as young as he used to be, he feels way drunker than he remembers. “It’s time to go to the club. Brian?”

Harry nudges Brian, and his head tips back onto the back of the sofa. He starts snoring.

“We’ve lost one!” Harry shouts, piling onto Brian’s lap. He takes Brian’s lax head between his hands and says, “Brian, if you’re in there, come back to me!”

“Get off ‘im, you’re going to hurt him,” Niall laughs, hooking his hand under Harry’s arm and pulling him off the couch. “Bless his heart, he’s tired. Let him sleep.”

Harry slumps into Niall’s side. He wraps his arm around Niall’s waist and slips his fingers underneath the hem of his thin t-shirt because he reckons he’s drunk enough to get away with it, and he’s just studying Niall’s neck for the best spot to hypothetically make a totally hypothetical love bite when Eoghan drags him by the collar to do another shot.

It’s kind of a miracle that they make it to the club at all. Inside, strobe lights flash over the seething crowd and across the wood-paneled walls to the bar, which seems to be made of solar panels or something, something that lights up. Harry was half-hoping that this club would be like one of those he’s only ever seen in magazines and drunken adventures in Germany, where everyone wears earphones playing the DJ’s Beyonce remix.

Harry thinks it’d be dead hilarious. But it’s a club just like any he’s been to all over the world, which is kind of disappointing, if he thinks about it too hard. Like how loos are mostly the same no matter where you are, except maybe in Japan, where sometimes they shoot water at your ass like a free colonic.

Harry loses track of the others, who stop off at the bar for more drinks before plunging into the crowd. It’s so great to come to clubs like these and for the lights to be too dim, the music to be too loud, the crowd to be too drunk for him to be recognized. Harry celebrates by dancing wildly.

Liam catches Harry under the arm when he pirouettes and loses his balance, and Harry laughs, turning in his arm. “Let me kiss you,” Harry half-sings, trying to plant a grateful smack to Liam’s face.

“I’m taken, Haz, sorry,” Liam laughs, his hands on Harry’s waist working both to keep him upright and at arm’s length. They have to shout to be heard over the din, Harry’s teeth rattling with the thunderous bass. Christ, they should make club songs of their own. Harry starts to tell Liam so, and someone bumps into him from behind. He stumbles into the circle of Liam’s arms, and Harry hugs him automatically.

“Not married, though,” Harry says in his ear, hooking his chin petulantly over Liam’s shoulder.

Liam rubs his hand up and down Harry’s back. “Tell you what, if things don’t work out with me and Soph, I’ll give you a shot.”

Harry shakes his head and pulls back with a laugh. “Thanks, Liam.” He mimes taking a drink and Liam nods, so Harry leaves him behind in the crowd and pushes his way to the bar. Harry plants himself at the counter, his fingers drumming unevenly on the wood. Dancing while he’s drunk is so much more fun than dancing while he’s sober; so is running, to be honest, the way he feels like he must be running eighty miles an hour. He feels loose and easy. Good.

“Can I buy you a drink?” a woman asks. Her lips are still painted a flawless bright red, and the flashing strobe lights highlight her good looks. Even the shape of her skull under her buzz cut is somehow pleasant, like a chicken egg. Or something.

Zayn’s not here to judge Harry for ordering sambucca, so he sips on his drink and lets these beautiful French women chat him up. Angelique keeps tossing her head back to laugh to show off her throat, and she never forgets to lightly touch his wrist or his chest.

No one has put this much effort into pulling him in a long time. It’s really quite flattering.

She slips her fingers through the gaps between the buttons in his shirt to pull Harry in closer, and he lets her, because why not, right? He might be helplessly in love with someone who doesn’t love him back, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have a good shag.

“Hey,” Niall says from behind him. He wraps his arm around Harry’s waist and leans into his side, and even though he knows he shouldn’t, Harry looks at him. His hair has gone flat from the humidity inside the club, and there’s a hectic flush on his cheeks. His hairline is damp with sweat like the cheese-filled crust of a really delicious pizza, and Harry really wants to take a bite out of him.

Angelique stops stroking Harry’s chest through the holes in his shirt. “ _Bonjour,_ ” she says, smiling tentatively.

Niall smiles back, offers his hand to shake. She didn’t seem to recognize Harry but maybe she recognizes Niall, the way she leans back a bit. Niall settles himself solidly against Harry’s side so that his ribs press into Harry’s every time one of them takes a breath, and it’s a little uncomfortable to be pressed so close while the club is so hot, Harry’s shirt sticking to him with sweat. He can’t even smell Niall’s usual cologne and toothpaste fragrance and it’s weird and awkward, all of a sudden, and Harry doesn’t want him there.

Harry always wants Niall there, he considers. He just doesn’t want him so close, like he’s taunting Harry with how little space there is left between them, and he can’t have him.

Ugh. Maybe this is what being angry drunk is like. Maybe he should give up drinking on his next cleanse.

Harry watches Niall chat with Angelique, his chin angled up ever so slightly like he’s on the defensive, which doesn’t make sense. He keeps sliding his hand up Harry’s back and stroking the back of his neck with his finger until Harry’s skin crawls with it.

Harry puts his arm around Niall and rests his head on his shoulder to talk into Niall’s ear, “What are you doing?”

Niall doesn’t answer. He just swallows and loops his other arm around Harry’s waist, so that he’s holding onto him at his hip, and suddenly all Harry can think about is whether or not someone is snapping their pic to sell to a gossip rag, and how that wouldn’t be a problem if – if it wasn’t, like. If it was real.

Harry pushes at Niall’s chest, and he drops his arms and takes a step back. Harry grabs his hand and pulls him into the gent’s loo in the back of the club, straight past the queue so that half a dozen French blokes start slagging them off at once. Harry just flips the deadbolt on the door, and then he turns to Niall with his hands on his hips.

Lamplight from the street outside streams through the tiny window high up on the far wall, cutting through the buzzing fluorescent lights overhead. Harry can see the sweat pooled on Niall’s collarbones and the hollow of his throat. This loo is so much colder than the club that Harry can feel his sweat begin to dry, his shirt hanging loose off him again. The tile walls sweat with condensation, but it smells entirely of Niall: spearmint toothpaste, his spicy warm cinnamon cologne, and hair wax.

“What was that about?” Harry demands. His voice comes out less harsh than he’d like.

Niall stuffs his hands in his pocket and toes at the ground like a little boy. “I don’t know,” he mumbles.

“It was like,” Harry goes on, squinting a little as he tries to think, “I don’t know, it was like you were –” _jealous_ , he realizes. It doesn’t make any sense. Harry frowns.

“Like I was what?” Niall presses, his hands curling into nervous fists in his pockets.

Harry shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Christ, Niall, you cockblocked me for what? To be mean? I don’t get it,” he admits. “You don’t want me, you married someone else.”

Niall’s shoulders drop, and his hands slide out of his pockets. They’re lax at his sides. “But I’m not married anymore,” Niall says. Harry can see his profile in the mirror on the wall, and his brow and nose and lips are still so sharp after all these years. He’s still so handsome. The flush on his cheeks deepens, and Harry watches Niall’s Adam’s apple bob when he swallows.

He’s looking right at Harry, almost unblinkingly, like he’s afraid Harry will vanish or some connection between them might break if he looks away. Harry thinks that’s pretty silly. He’s loved Niall without so much as talking to him for years; he can’t imagine that ever changing. Harry tears his eyes away from the mirror. He can tell that something important is happening here, even if he doesn’t know what.

Even if he’s afraid to believe what he hopes it is.

“I didn’t want to put that on you, that I broke up with her because of you.” He swallows and says it again, and this time it’s a statement. “I broke up with her because of you.”

Almost ten years ago, when Harry first got back from that holiday to Ireland, he’d flung himself across his sister’s bed and burrowed into her duvet. “Wotcher,” she’d said, hitting his foot with a sheaf of papers in her hand. Then she’d patted his shin. “Well?” Gemma asked. “How was it?”  

“Well,” Harry started, staring up at the ceiling of his sister’s room. She had those glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars, and Harry remembered Niall with his cheek to cold window on the Dublin-Sligo train. His breath left a fan of condensation on the window, blurring the cloudless velvety sky beyond them. Harry had been so tired and so keyed-up after spending a whole day with his new friends in a strange city. He had no idea that was going to be his life.

“Grand, aren’t they?” Niall asked, his eyes on the stars. His hand absently stroked Holly’s hair, her head in his lap and her eyes closed.

“Grand,” Harry agreed, his eyes on Niall.

“I’m going to love it,” he told Gemma, even though he’d probably already started.

Niall’s looking at Harry like he’s worried Harry might think less of him. Maybe Harry should, in an objective way. He knows it’s not as simple as all that.

“Really?” Harry says instead. Just, “Really?”

“Yeah,” Niall says. He’s started wringing his fingers together. He’s got such lovely elegant musician’s hands until he gets nervous, and then his hands are like fluttery birds trapped in a cage, or in a too-small room with no idea how to get out.

Harry blinks. “Well, what are you doing over there, then? Get over here,” he says, and meets Niall halfway. Harry hugs him tight enough to feel like maybe he smells like Niall, now, too, and then he presses his face to the side of Niall’s head just to be sure. From there, it’s easy for Niall to turn his head and catch Harry’s lips in a kiss.

He kisses just the same as he used to. This time, his mouth doesn’t taste like cupcake batter; he tastes like the beer he drinks on Sunday mornings when he’s catching up on a match, and Harry’s breath catches, because he wants that. Niall just in the other room whinging about his team’s score and Harry loudly agreeing without paying much attention. It’s a little scary, actually, how much he wants it. How much he wants.

Harry slides his hands down Niall’s back until he’s groping his arse, and then he pushes his hand down that much further and hitches Niall’s knee up to his hip. Easy as that, he does the same for Niall’s other leg.

Niall pulls away from Harry’s mouth with a strangled laugh. “You finally figured that one out, then?”

Harry’s heart fills with fondness. Then, “Jeez, you’re heavy.”

“Put me down, then,” Niall murmurs into Harry’s throat, so Harry sets him on the counter. He thinks of kissing Niall in that hotel room in Nice, and he can’t get Niall’s flies open fast enough. “You don’t have to,” Niall says, running his fingers through Harry’s hair. It’s short enough now he can do that without Harry’s tangles catching, long enough that Harry tilts his head up when Niall pulls gently on the ends of his hair. Niall kisses him softly on the mouth once, then twice, like he can’t stop kissing him.

“Want to,” Harry mumbles. He’s surprised by how rough his own voice comes out. “Okay?” he asks, checking to make sure Niall nods. “Been thinking of it since Nice. Kept wondering if you’d taste as sweet as all that cupcake batter.”

“Not – ah – likely,” Niall says, shifting so that Harry can pull his jeans down low enough to get his dick out. Niall always used to get crazy flushed when they shagged; it’s one of those things that used to torture Harry when he thought of it, or saw pictures of Niall under the hot stage lights while he was touring with the Moonlights.

It’s the same now, and just as tortuously good to see, to know that Harry’s done that to him. Harry keeps peeking one eye open while they kiss to watch his hand leave an impression on the side of Niall’s face while he jacks him loosely with the other. It takes a bit of experimenting to find the right rhythm, so that Niall keeps going tense when Harry twists his wrist just the right way.

Slow and hoarse, Niall mumbles, “C’mon now, we can’t hog the loo forever,” so Harry just slows down further, until Niall hooks his foot around the back of Harry’s leg and pulls him in as close as he can. He pushes his hands into the open sides of Harry’s shirt, and Harry remembers Niall stroking the soft, smooth skin of his back while Harry napped in bed in LA. He always suspected Niall liked the way it felt.

Niall digs his short nails into Harry’s back, and suddenly Harry can’t get Niall’s dick in his mouth fast enough. Niall’s so close to coming already that his jaw aches with the stretch, and he’s not out of practice or anything but he wants this so bad that he tries to take too much at once and has to pull back a bit, the corners of his eyes burning. “Missed this,” Niall murmurs, his broad dry palm cupping the back of Harry’s neck. “Missed you.”

Harry digs his fingers into Niall’s hips to stop him thrusting shallowly into his mouth, and then he makes a concerted effort to repress his gag reflex, taking him all the way down.

“Christ,” Niall says, sounding strangled. It comes back to Harry slowly, the way he likes it when Harry presses his tongue up, and Niall groans so loud everybody queued up outside must be able to hear it.

He comes with a mumbled warning, his legs clenching on either side of Harry. Harry pulls back just enough to swallow, and then he just rolls his head onto the soft pillow of Niall’s thigh without getting back up, his eyes fluttering shut. Niall twitches when Harry’s breath hits his oversensitized dick, and then he stoops over to kiss the side of Harry’s face.

Harry picks his head up to kiss him back proper, and Niall slips his hand down Harry’s pants almost without him realizing it. He supposes he’s hard in an abstract, loves-getting-Niall-off sort of way, but he takes a definite interest when Niall breaks away from their kiss to lick his palm slick for an easy glide over Harry’s dick.

“Your hand probably has germs on it,” Harry observes brilliantly. He drops his head onto Niall’s shoulder and lets him take care of him, watching Niall’s calloused, capable hand work him over fast and sure. “Like, I don’t know, tetanus or something.”

Niall lets out a soft laugh. “Worth it,” he murmurs, and pushes one hand up the back of Harry’s shirt to stroke his skin. He presses up against the knot of tension at the base of Harry’s spine like he _knows,_ and that’s what has Harry coming all over his hand. Niall tucks him back in when he’s through, and then he slides off the edge of the counter to his feet and zips his own trousers back up. He turns to wash his hands at the sink, and Harry watches him stupidly, admiring the flush on the back of Niall’s neck.

Outside sounds, like other people in the club banging on the door and grousing about having to take a piss, start filtering back in. Niall tries to catch Harry’s eye but Harry can’t quite look at him, all of a sudden. Not like he’s embarrassed about sucking him off or anything but, like, he doesn’t know. On some level he’s just waiting for Niall to push him away.

“We’re still on for dinner tomorrow, right?” Niall blurts. He looks anxious when Harry makes himself glance at his face.

“Uh, what?”

Niall chews on the cuticle of his thumb. Harry winces, thinking of the edges of Niall’s fingernails being bitten raw and bloody for weeks after Zayn left, and pushes his hand down. “You know. Our date.”

Harry doesn’t mean to gape, but he must, because Niall lets out a nervous laugh and pretends to shove Harry away by his face. “We have a date?”

“Yeah, what did you think I was doing in your sister’s room earlier?”

“Well, if I had known that I wouldn’t have wasted so much time at the bar,” Harry points out, and Niall laughs. He finally flips the bolt on the bathroom door and a whiskey-smelling gent pushes past them and stalks over to the urinal to relieve himself without even waiting for them to leave.

Niall nods and pulls Harry close to speak into his ear. He has to be shout to be heard over the din of the club but it still feels like a secret, or a promise, like Niall’s whispering just for Harry when he says, “No more wasting time, yeah?”

Yeah, Harry thinks, and follows Niall back to the dance floor, where Liam and Louis welcome them into the band’s ragtag group of poor dancers. It’s not hard to keep Niall within his line of sight, even arm’s reach, and every time he catches Harry’s eye, Harry smiles harder.

They stumble home with the others at half-four, not without stopping for Nutella-and-strawberry crepes from the roadside vendor. Houseguests linger in the living room and between bedrooms, their doors open like the whole house is having some kind of sleepover, so there’s no way for Harry and Niall to sneak away and find a room to themselves.

Which is alright with Harry, if he’s honest with himself. It’s nice just to have tonight, and such good mates to spend it with, and the memory of Niall’s hand on the side of his face, touching him like he really, really loved him. 

***

Rumour wakes Harry up the next morning, keening softly in the back of his throat and his sharp toenails nervously tapping on the floor. Harry rolls out of bed and stumbles to open the back garden door for him so that he can have a wee before he pees all over the floor and Harry has to clean it up. The house is quiet, still, and the sun isn’t even up yet. The sky is just a soft shade of pale grey; dove gray, Anne would probably call it, fluffing her coat of the same color. For a split second, Harry can smell her familiar perfume, and her favorite flavor of milky Earl Gray tea, and he honestly believes he could be a kid again.

Because he can, he relieves himself in a corner of the garden, and then he ambles down to breakfast, where Gemma and Brian and Zoe are eating croissants from the bakery up the road with Louis and Lottie. Harry pats Lottie’s shoulder on his way by, she’s so like his own little sister, and Gemma ruffles his bedhead.

“You look sterling,” she says dryly, so Harry just sticks his tongue out at her. He can’t quite remember right now how early babies start learning sign language, but he doesn’t want Zoe to pick up the middle finger from him. He’s meant to be a good godfather, after all. “After seeing the state of you lot I’m glad you didn’t take Brian out with you.” Gemma combs her fingers through her husband’s hair.

Louis nods. “It is hell,” he says smartly, taking a sip of his tea.

Harry groans. “I don’t know how you manage to become a teetotaler overnight, but I hate you for it.”

“Purely for the satisfaction of watching you suffer,” Louis says brightly. He takes a bite out of the bowl of melon sat in front of him, and Harry grabs a fork from the drawer and draws up the chair beside Louis’s to share.

“Where are Niall and Liam?” Harry asks, trying for casual.

Lottie answers, “Went into town with Sophia and his parents this morning, I think they’re doing some shopping.”

Louis lets out a soft laugh. “Maybe that’s the real reason why Soph won’t marry Liam. She can’t marry Niall too.”

“Except in Utah,” Harry points out, and worries over his bottom lip. Niall must not have said anything to anyone before he left; Gemma would definitely be giving him the third degree right now if she knew. Harry wonders if he talked to Liam, if he means to before Harry sees him again. Harry has the sudden, fierce desire not to tell anyone about him and Niall. It seems like everybody already knows the important bits anyway, right? They’re best friends. They love each other. They work together. Maybe it can be that simple.

“Well, yes. You better tell them that, Styles,” Louis says. He rolls his eyes, claps a hand to the back of Harry’s head in a gesture that’s mostly friendly, and leaves him with the rest of the bowl of melon. Harry chews through it slowly, thinking about how that wedding would be. How would that marriage even work? They’d have a really big bed, or would take turns sharing two, three beds? Or like…

Gemma kicks his shin under the table. “Stop thinking about your friends having a threesome.”

“If I’m there to watch, does that make it a foursome?” Harry asks academically, and Gemma rolls her eyes very hard. Harry plucks Zoe off her lap and cuddles her close to his chest, sniffing at the top of her head. Rumour briefly lifts his head off of Harry’s feet under the table to get a whiff of her, and then he settles back down with his head neatly on his front paws again.

Harry spends the rest of the day cooking dinner for everybody else like this house is not full of grown adults who are well able to cook for themselves, let alone staffed with a professional chef. He wants something to keep him busy, and he’s hit the point where he just needs to sing or hum the melody of his new songs to himself over and over again until they sound right.

Sophia, Niall, Liam, and his parents get home right around five o’clock, when Harry has the crawfish broil on a simmer and put away the garlic rolls in the oven to heat later. Niall grins the second he spots him and he ambles right over.

Niall tucks his head in close like he might be about to kiss Harry or rest his cheek on Harry’s shoulder, so Harry anxiously edges back half a foot. He puts his hand on Niall’s shoulder, frowning. “Is your knee bothering you?” Harry asks.

“Just a bit,” Niall says lightly. Harry clocks the sweat on his temples and the way his lips are pale from how much he’s bitten them, and he fetches him an icepack and sends him away to elevate his leg. Niall sits at the round wooden table, soft and smooth from years of use, inside the kitchen.

Rumour settles back in his spot curled up against the counters, his clever eyes watching Harry and waiting for table scraps. Liam and Soph and Karen and Geoff spread their purchases all over the table and babble excitedly about the street musician they met who was playing the banjo with only one arm.

Harry turns from the hob to find Niall watching him intently, and Harry offers him a little smile. Niall nods, the corners of his mouth quirking up, and Harry catches himself humming louder, his chest rumbling like a cat’s purr.

When everything is ready to be served, Harry excuses himself to back to his room and get dressed. He could maybe do with a shower, but he can smell thyme and garlic powder on his own skin from the steaming pot in the kitchen, and his arms and legs are still ever-so-slightly salty from his swim this morning. His skin burns just a little like he spent ten minutes too much time in the sun today, but it feels good, like the golden tan he knows it’ll settle into.

Harry listens to Niall make polite conversation with the others for about five minutes, and then Niall excuses himself politely and slips into Harry’s room, Rumour on his heels. Niall closes the door behind them, and it’s blissfully quiet.

“We’ve never been on a date before,” Harry remarks to Niall, sifting through his wardrobe. Rumour leaps onto the bed and settles himself on top of Harry’s fur coat. His bright, lively eyes stay trained on Harry and Niall. Goofy dog, Harry thinks fondly.

Niall raises his eyebrows at Harry. “Is that why you’re dressed as if you’ve never gone on a date at all?”

Harry huffs out a laugh. “I’m incognito,” he explains. He adjusts the beret on his head and throws the long end of the blue scarf over his shoulder. He carefully sets his ‘60s-looking sunglasses on his nose and turns around to let Niall see him proper. “How do I look?”

“Like an absolute nutter,” Niall says, watching with his arms folded from the doorway. He picks himself up off the doorjamb to tuck a stray curl back under Harry’s hat. “What’s with the getup? You don’t want to be seen with me?”

Harry stops twirling his scarf in his hand like he’s seen strippers do at those bars in Vegas where you’re meant to order a full meal with your show. “Just, I don’t know. I just thought it’d be nice if, like, it was just you and me. Because last time was, uh…”

“Okay,” Niall says easily.

Harry narrows his eyes. “Really?”

Niall rolls his eyes. He plucks Harry’s glasses off the bridge of his nose and puts them on his own face, and then he pulls on the leather jacket Harry had laying on his bed. Harry himself wouldn’t recognize him at first glance. Harry concentrates on lassoing Niall over with his scarf, and Niall obligingly ducks his head and lets Harry wrangle him in.

“Yup. Haven’t told Liam yet, so,” Niall says. Harry puts his hands on Niall’s hips and tangles his fingers in Niall’s belt loops, and when they kiss, it feels a little like breathing. “You don’t need to keep asking.” Harry pulls away from his face, his heart aching a little from how good Niall looks, his lips red and spit-slick. “I’m good. It’s good. We’re good.”

“Good,” Harry says succinctly. Then he taps Niall on the nose. “Now, no more kissing till the second date. I’m a man of character, don’t you know.” He turns back toward the mirror, forgetting that Niall can see his face all the time. He looks like the Cheshire cat, he’s smiling so.

Niall leans forward and hooks his chin over Harry’s shoulder so that their faces are side by side in the mirror. Harry reaches back to cup the back of Niall’s head without even thinking about it. His eyes are soft as pudding. “C’mon, we’re going to miss our reservation,” Niall says, and Harry lets him turn his head and kiss his cheek swiftly before he pulls away.

“Okay, _that_ was the last one!” Harry declares, and Niall just laughs.

The Paynes just wave them off when they slip out the front door, Niall’s casual “checking out a new restaurant up the way, see you in a bit,” all the explanation they need. Harry waits till they’re well down the road before he tangles his fingers with Niall’s, who just smiles and squeezes his hand.

“Are you rebounding with me?” Harry asks, drawing to a halt in front of a café smelling of coffee and chocolate biscotti. Harry has a sudden, powerful urge to go in and slip behind the counter, roll up his sleeves and work his arms out on rolling strips of thick dough.

“What?” Niall laughs. “No.”

“Well, was I the first person you shagged since you got divorced?” Harry asks.

Niall winces a little at the word, much the same way he winces at his bum knee. Some things were never good. “‘Course not. I slept with loads of people.”

“Oh,” Harry says, and starts walking again. Niall keeps pace at his side, his breath soft and easy, light. “I mean,” Harry starts, and Niall laughs.

“Impossible, you are,” Niall says fondly, untangling his fingers with Harry’s so that he can slide his hand into Harry’s back pocket. “I don’t want to shag anyone else,” Niall says, like that covers it. And, well, maybe it does.

They have a reservation for two at L’Eden Plage Mala just up the coast from the Bungalow. It’s a one story, sloping little beach café with an amazing view, and beach chairs lined up on the sand to watch the moon and stars rise over the ocean. The concierge shows Harry and Niall to their seats underneath a table just inside the overhang of the restaurant’s roof; it’s only got three walls, and the cool, salty sea breeze laps at Harry’s ankles and wrists. At the far wall, a band plays a smooth, bopping song that reminds Harry a little of a Jason Mraz song.

“Nice,” Harry comments, and Niall flashes a quick grin up at him. He turns his attention back to the menu, which is all in French, so Harry just closes his and sets it aside. He drags his chair around to sit beside Niall, instead, and lets Niall haltingly translate the items on the menu for him.

Niall orders them both sweet red wine, so Harry swills his around his glass while Niall peruses the menu. “I’m not sure what this is,” Niall says, pointing to a jumble of letters with accents on top and bottom and either side. Harry raises a skeptical eyebrow at it. “Seems like these are, like, maybe bowls of pasta,” Niall hazards a guess. “D’you want a salad?”

“Yeah, if I don’t like mine, I’ll just eat yours,” Harry shrugs, so Niall rolls his eyes a little bit, hooking his ankle over Harry’s under the table.

Harry’s salad arrives with crumbled up bits of bleu cheese on, so Harry immediately pushes it away and starts picking through Niall’s plate. It’s got wedges of potato and bits of what look like asparagus, maybe, but it seems edible, at least. Niall pushes his plate over and drags Harry’s closer to himself, picking around the bleu cheese blobs for the cashews buried beneath kale leaves.

The wine is sweet and just strong enough to have Harry feeling a little boneless, melty, the way his body usually only ever gets the day after a massage. A harpist joins the band playing under the far wall, and Harry can smell Niall’s cinnamon-y cologne, his familiar soap and the spearmint toothpaste he’s forever brushing with. Niall brushes the birthmark on the back of Harry’s hand when he sets his fork down to take a drink of his wine, and Harry beams.

“Real or not real?” Harry asks.

Niall laughs. “We’re not Katniss and Peeta, babe.”

It hasn’t escaped Harry that Niall’s started attaching pet names to him. He’s easier, freer with his affection than he was before. Harry smiles. “Says who?”

Niall pulls back a bit, making that face like he’s not impressed at all, but he cracks and smiles almost instantly. “Real,” he just says, so Harry sneaks his hand into Niall’s lap under the table and squeezes the top of his thigh. Niall swallows, his eyes darting around to make sure no one’s seen, and Harry smiles to himself.

Half a glass of wine later, Harry interrupts Niall’s perusal of the dessert menu to elbow him in the ribs. “We should dance,” he says. There’s a couple on the edge of the beach slow dancing to the live band’s tribute to the band from Titanic, Harry’s pretty sure, and he’d quite like to join them. He loves Titanic.

“Eh,” Niall says, already pushing out of his chair.

They fumble for a moment over who gets to lead, and then Harry slides his hand up Niall’s back, holding him closer, and Niall twists their hands so that their fingers are locked together. He smooths his other hand down low on Harry’s waist, and it’s like they don’t even exist, the way no one looks at them.

Harry picks his head up off Niall’s shoulder to make a brilliant observation. “It’s weird dating you,” he says.

The best – one of the best things about Niall being Niall is that Harry doesn’t have to try so hard to make himself understood. Niall doesn’t even get offended. “How d’you mean?” he asks, tightening his arm around Harry’s waist.

“Like, I don’t know,” Harry says. “I just think, y’know, this can’t be our first date. I’ve known you ten years. You’re supposed to blush and stammer and I’m supposed to scream internally the whole time.”

“I am blushing,” Niall says with a ruddy smile. His cheeks are flushed red from the wine.

Harry admits, “I have been doing a little internal screaming. But, I don’t know. Y’know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Niall shrugs. “We can just skip all the firsts. We’re picking up somewhere in the middle.”

Harry strokes Niall’s cheek with his thumb. Harry can’t often see it on him, Niall hides it so well, but sometimes he does look tired. Less like the Niall that Harry first knew, with his crooked teeth and that terrible dye job, and more like the man he thought he could be.

“ _You never disappoint me, you know that?_ ” Harry remembers asking Niall the first time he ever saw his new house in London. He thinks about Niall, an old man at twenty-two, and younger now, somehow. Not less sure, just less settled. Like he’s buzzing with it, the new album and the tour and maybe, if Harry’s very lucky, maybe this, too.

“I like that,” Harry hums. After a darting glance around to make sure no one’s watching, he pulls Niall in for a quick kiss. He’s just drunk enough that it’s a little sloppy, Niall’s mouth coming away slick, and Harry licks his lips, unable to look away. “D’you maybe want to go back to mine?”

Niall nods quickly. “Just gotta pay the tab.”

As usual when he’s tipsy, Harry’s attention wanders. He can’t concentrate on walking in a straight line, but he can smell the honeysuckle and sea breeze on the wind, and he can feel Niall’s hand in his, an exquisite point of contact. Harry keeps raising their hands to his mouth and kissing Niall’s knuckles, and his skin is soft against Harry’s lips. Not like Harry’s own knuckles, which are all too often bruised from rounds with the sandbag.

“Forgot,” Niall says fuzzily, his accent reverting to pure Midland. Harry tightens his grip on Niall’s hand, leans into his shoulder when they start the trip up the hill to the Bungalow. Niall pats Harry’s stomach, holds him up so that Harry can feel the sharp edge of Niall’s shoulder dig into his for a second.

It’s maybe a little weird, but he likes all the bits of Niall he can touch. Not just kissing him or holding his hand, but the way his breath changes when he laughs and how he shivers if Harry ghosts his fingers over the back of Niall’s neck, the tension in his body unwinding like a clock.

“Forgot what?” Harry prompts, pulling Niall aside, onto the little footpath that leads round to the back of the house so they can sort themselves out before they walk in. It’s not so late, only eleven or so, and others might still be awake yet. It’s not got that feeling, not with only a few bedroom lights on, the house peaceful and quiet before people start flying home tomorrow. Harry’s taking Gemma and Brian to the airport in just a few days.

Niall pulls Harry closer by their hands, still knotted together like the impossible tangle of earbud wires no matter how neatly Harry has stowed them in his pocket. “All over me, you are,” Niall says, still with that same ridiculously strong accent. He sounds almost sloppy drunk, like he’d sometimes get with the Moonlights during rehearsal days if Harry couldn’t make it down to the pub with them for some reason or another, and Harry can’t help the way he smiles, his heart aching with it. He’s not all that drunk, though, Harry knows. He’s just loose. Honest, in his backwards way of telling Harry that he likes how overbearing Harry’s show of affection can be. Harry buries his face in Niall’s neck.

“Okay,” he says, when he surfaces. Niall smelled so good, of course Harry had to lick him, and he can taste Niall’s sweat, salty and a little tangy, on his tongue. “We – We’ll go in different doors, right? I’ll go around back, you take the front, and you can come to mine.”

“We should’ve roomed next door to each other,” Niall grumbles. Harry knows he’s thinking of Liam and Sophia on one side of him, Gemma and Brian with the baby on the other. Harry’s just got himself and Rumour and Louis on the other side, and Louis couldn’t give a shit less what Harry does so long as he doesn’t wake him up before noon. “Be easier.”

Harry concentrates on not sliding his hands up the front of Niall’s shirt. His chest is hairy but his belly is smooth, and Harry just wants to touch him all over. “Sounds good, though, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall nods immediately. He squeezes Harry’s hand tight, a look on his face like he’s gearing himself up for something tough, and Harry has a Technicolor vision of seeing Niall off to war dressed to the nines in his greens, his hair slicked back with something like motor oil. Harry shakes his head, and he just pats Niall’s cheek. Niall starts the long walk up the front steps and Harry heads round back.

He finds Louis on the back porch with Liam and Sophia, and Harry stops in the doorway to watch them. Louis doesn’t seem small, the way he does when he’s uncomfortable; he opens up like a flower under peoples’ adoration, and Liam and Sophia are such a willing, pliable audience. Liam catches Harry’s eye, his face full of the same warm golden glow he wore to Niall’s wedding, and Harry winks at him. Liam winks back with both his eyes, and Harry tips his head against the porch beam to watch, just for a minute.

When Louis notices him, he calls, “Did you and Niall have a nice date then, Harold?” His angular face is all humor, that sharp brand of teasing Harry remembers from the early days of the band.

Harry wrinkles his nose. “My salad came with bleu cheese on.”

Louis and Liam make sympathetic noises. Harry pushes off the banister to go inside. He drops a kiss on top of Sophia’s head on his way by, and she pats the hand he puts on her shoulder, her smile sweet. She smells like flowers.

Harry strokes Rumour’s head, his long, furry body curled up on the comfy armchair beside the velvet couch in the living room. Rumour’s ears twitch, and he lets out that little huffing noise he always makes. Harry smiles. “You love me, you grouchy dog,” he says, stroking his thumb over Rumour’s silky ear. Rumour lets out a little sigh of contentment.

Harry pushes his bedroom door open while unfastening the last two buttons on his shirt. It’s still dark inside, and refreshingly cool. The wonky AC system has a direct line into his room, so it’s almost always too cold, but it’s so nice after having spent all that time on the beach, with the humid coastal air stroking his hair into tight curls. Harry leans against the door for a second, enjoying the way it feels. Enjoying this moment.

“What, did you get lost?” Niall asks. He smiles when Harry jumps, surprised. “Just me, sorry,” he tells Harry, who ambles over to the bed to unlace his boots and step out of them.

Niall lines the tip of his shoes up against Harry’s, putting his hand on his shoulder. “Getting old,” he jokes quietly. “Can hardly see you.”

“It’s my disguise,” Harry says sagely. “I’m the invisible man.”

Niall laughs and pulls Harry up by the front of his shirt. He pretends he can’t see Harry, his eyes glazed and unfocused. “Ooh, well, let’s see who this is, then,” he says, prodding Harry’s chest with his fingertips. He drags his fingers down Harry’s chest. “Waxes his chest,” Niall starts, his fingers catching a little on Harry’s chest stubble. Harry splutters out a laugh. Niall pushes his hand down lower, stroking the bottom of Harry’s stomach. “Muscles,” he observes. “Hm, maybe a boxer, or a runner.”

“You’re on fire,” Harry gets out, laughter dying in his throat when Niall touches his knuckles. He’s so careful, light, and the expression on his face is so serious.

“Definitely a boxer,” he says, then prods Harry’s palms. “Soft hands, though,” he adds. “Not played guitar nearly enough.” Niall smiles to himself. “Hm,” he hums, featherlight touches up Harry’s arms.

He strokes the rough, insensitive skin of his elbows, nodding to himself like he’s discovered something important. “A writer,” he says, so that Harry sees himself as Niall must see him all the time, hunched over his journal with his arms spread on the table, leaning on his elbow. Niall pushes Harry’s shirt off his shoulders, and he lets it fall softly to the floor. Niall thumbs at the top of Harry’s shoulders, the muscles above his collarbones. “Ah, now here it gets interesting,” Niall says, his voice as soft as Harry’s ever heard it.

“What?” Harry whispers. His voice is so hoarse, even in that one word. He has to clear his throat to get the words out.

Niall massages Harry’s shoulders with his thumbs so that his arms instantly feel like they’re buzzing, like they’re so much lighter than they were before. “All that tension,” Niall clucks. “You worry too much.” He cradles Harry’s face between his palms, and when he catches Harry’s eye, he waits for Harry to smile back.

Moonlight streams into Harry’s room through the window above his bed, and the silvery light catches on Niall’s stubble. It spills across the contours of his chest and arms, highlighting the hollows above his collarbones and at the base of his throat.

 _Chiaroscuro,_ his photography teacher in New York with the strong Bronx accent calls it; the study of shadows and light. That’s the approach Harry would take now if he was taking his photograph. He wouldn’t put the flash on, and the picture would be nothing but silvery blue moonlight and inky black shadows. Even Niall’s eyes look washed-out in the light, like a mirage, like something Harry’s never really had.

“I’m meant to be invisible,” Harry reminds Niall, his voice like a croak.

“I know you,” Niall says quietly. His hands feel sizzlingly hot on Harry’s skin, and Harry can’t wait anymore, he loses this damn game, whatever. He wraps his arms around Niall’s waist and hauls him in, tugging at the back of his shirt to get it off over his head. Niall’s hair comes out in a dark ruffled mess, and he’s so warm to the touch, perfect for Harry. 

“You’re shivering,” Niall observes, pulling back a bit to let Harry pop the button on Niall’s jeans and start shoving his pants and trousers to the floor.

“Scared,” Harry admits faster than he can think. It’s just sex, but maybe he wants it to be more than that, and that’s the scary part.

Niall makes a soft sound, and then he pushes Harry over onto the bed so that he can tug his jeans and boxers off his feet. He leaves his socks on. He drops into Harry’s lap with a knee on either side of his hips, and Harry props himself up on his elbows to watch him tug his shirt off over his head.

Harry traces the raised line of his ribs like piano keys. He strokes Niall’s chest hair and Niall laughs, shudders. “Tickles,” he murmurs, leaning down for a kiss. Niall stretches himself out on top of Harry, who rearranges them till he’s comfortable. Niall drops a kiss onto the bird on Harry’s chest, and Harry traces a path between the freckles on Niall’s back, remembering that one afternoon, years ago, that he marked the lines between them with a marker and Niall let him take pictures like he didn’t care who knew.

The feeling rushes over Harry gradually, like hot water from a showerhead hitting the top of his head and trickling down to his shoulders, then his stomach, his knees, till it rushes around his feet. Harry never forgot what it was like to be loved by Niall, but he loves Niall so much that it fills him up.

“Hey,” Harry says, because he’s always told Niall when significant things happen. Even when he was sat in the hospital waiting room to get his chin stitched up and he could hardly see for the teenage heartbreak and the pain, he’d called Niall. “That’s rough, mate,” Niall had said slowly. “Should I come get you?”

“What?” Niall asks, lifting his head. Harry puts his hand to the side of Niall’s face and it’s such a silly, romantic thing to think, but it’s a perfect fit.

“I kept thinking – I kept thinking it was you or the band, you know?”

Niall pulls back, his face going confused, but Harry all but grabs him by the ears to hold him close.

“No, not like – that. I mean, like,” he swallows. “‘Cos you were married, and I was being good. To have the band back. And, uh. I’d have done it, y’know? But I’d have done it for you.”

“Harry.” That’s all Niall says, “Harry,” his voice doing Harry’s favorite thing. The scariest thing, too.

Harry swallows. He pulls Niall back down and kisses him till his heart doesn’t feel so much like it’s trying to beat right out of his chest. “Right, so. D’you wanna fuck me?”

“With an offer like that,” Niall laughs, already reaching over to rifle through the nightstand. Harry shoves a pillow up under his hips and almost accidentally knees Niall in the leg.

“Have you ever eaten another bloke out?” Harry asks while Niall slicks his fingers up.

He tosses the lube aside and raises one dubious eyebrow at Harry, his flush deepening. “Can’t say I have, no.”

Harry tips his head back against the pillows, ignoring the initial press of discomfort, focusing instead on Niall’s calloused, confident hand on his dick, the humming he’s probably not even aware he’s doing. “I’d do you,” Harry says, squeezing his eyes shut. “Not everybody, like, for everyone, but uh. Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Niall laughs, muffling his laughter into Harry’s neck. Harry doesn’t have to remind him not to leave any bruises; Niall presses a bunch of nipping bites along Harry’s jaw, instead. Harry grits his teeth, caught somewhere between pleasure and pain. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“God,” Harry says. His skin feels like it should be steaming, he’s so hot now, and even though they’ve spoken in nothing but whispers his voice seems so loud. “So slow, mate. Fuck.” He scrambles around the sheets for the bottle of lube and slicks up his own fingers.

Niall’s voice sounds strangled in his throat. “What are you – Harry,” Niall says his name again, and Harry could purr, it’s so nice that he can still surprise him after all this time.

It’s not something he does all the time, but it’s not like he’s got no practice at working himself open. Niall watches in mostly slack-mouthed awe, so Harry makes it look good for him, and it’s not even mostly for show, the way he writhes on the sheets.

By the time he’s ready, Harry’s breathing hard. He licks his lips and tastes sweat. The caramel apple-scented candle on his nightstand is unlit, but Harry can smell it ever so slightly, and it smells as sweet as this summer has been. “Kay,” Harry tells Niall, uncurling himself from the awkward angle he had to hold.

“On your back, or?” Niall asks. The hair around his temples is damp with sweat and curling, and Harry tugs on a lock and watches it spring back into a coil because he can’t help himself. Harry thinks about having to hold himself up and automatically starts nodding. Niall moves closer, and then he tucks Harry’s calf up over his shoulder. “Yeah?” he checks.

“Yes, yep, definitely, one hundred percent,” Harry nods, his curls bouncing in his face.

“Bless,” Niall says fondly, smoothing his hair back. He moves back in, the insides of Harry’s thighs aching with the stretch like a really good workout.

Harry muffles himself with the heel of his hand so that he won’t make a sound when Niall presses in, waiting with infinite patience for Harry to adjust. The angle’s not quite right until Harry drags Niall down for a kiss, and Niall keeps kissing him through the loud groan he can’t quite stop himself letting out.

Niall comes first, his breath huffing out onto Harry’s neck. He fists his hands into the sheets and for a wild second, Harry wishes he had his camera, so that he could take a picture of it. The cords and tendons in Niall’s hands drawn tight, his knuckles gone white.

Harry lets Niall lie still for a moment, and then he nudges his ribs with his knee. Niall drops the condom on the laundry beside the bed and shuffles down Harry’s body, quickly slipping his fingers in. He doesn’t take Harry particularly deep into his mouth, but he remembers that thing he used to do with his tongue, and Harry doesn’t last long.

“Ah,” Harry says, for lack of anything else to say. He blinks until the stars in his eyes fizzle out and he can see the sloping ceiling of his bedroom again, dappled with rolling waves of light reflected off the ocean outside.

Niall turns his head to look at Harry. “Are you humming?” he asks.

Harry thinks about it. “Oh. Guess so,” he laughs.

“ _Dancing in the dark,_ ” Niall catches on immediately, his raspy voice deliciously hoarse. Harry finds his hand in the sheets and tangles their fingers together.

Harry falls asleep before Niall even gets back around to the chorus.

***

 “Right then,” Liam says, setting his lemonade aside. He smacks his lips. “Business time.”

Harry groans and rolls his head back against his pool lounger. The sun is right in his eyes, shining even through his darkest pair of sunglasses, but he’s too languorous to raise his hand. He thinks about moving his hair around on the sides, like Liam demonstrated once, as blinders. He’s not sure how it’d help, though; he’d just like to annoy Liam.

“What business?” Louis groans. He slurps noisily from his bright blue Icee, his mouth stained red from his last one, and Harry wonders how well-thought out they were to have let him install an Icee machine off the kitchen. It’s better than boozing, Harry supposes. “We’ve mostly got the songs, now we’ve just got to record them. Boom. Easy.”

“Still got to pick a place,” Liam reminds them. Niall reaches over and plucks the iPad out of Liam’s hands so that he can go over Liam’s list himself. He pushes his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose, which is already reddening. Harry tries not to think about how nice it’d be to rub sunblock into his skin, or how he’ll taste later, sunblock and sweat and chlorine.

He hadn’t been alarmed when he woke up alone this morning. He’d have known that Niall was just keeping up appearances, keeping whatever they had between them quiet, even without Niall’s hastily scrawled note on the pillow beside him. Niall leaving felt easy, inevitable, like waking up to him is just a little too much to ask. Not that Harry couldn’t ask, but he doesn’t want to ask for too much, not when he knows how precious and precipitous everything is.

Harry can still hear him saying, _I broke up with her because of you_ , and he knows that sometimes a love that you think will last forever fades, and then it becomes the dry divorce papers in an envelope in Niall’s nightstand. And most of the stuff Harry loves has a way of changing on him, moving on before he’s ready, before he even knows it’s happening. He doesn’t want that to be a problem this time. He’s trying to love with open hands.

“And a producer,” Harry puts in. He stretches out to nudge Niall with his toes, who swats his foot away without looking at him. Harry, who had raised the little pink umbrella from the top of his drink to take a sip, narrows his eyes. “And do a press conference and work on tour dates and stuff,” he adds, and fishes an ice cube out of his strawberry lemonade.

Louis sits forward in his chair, rubbing his chin with his hand. “I’ve been working on that stuff,” Louis says, since it is his label they’re signed to now. He scowls at the other threes’ surprised expressions. “What? I have fuck all time now that I’m not drinking.”

“I like arenas,” Niall volunteers, almost randomly. “Plus, I don’t know that, uh, we’re going to fill stadiums. Maybe we should look at clubs,” he laughs. Harry runs the ice cube along the scar on Niall’s knee and Niall’s whole body jerks. He was sweating when Harry climbed out of the pool and fell onto the pool lounger beside his so that his skin was sparkling with it, and he smells so good. Harry puts the ice cube in his mouth, tasting the faintest hint of sunblock.

“What are you angry with me for?” Niall demand, drawing his knee up protectively. “I’m not the one who’s not listening to you. Producer, I heard.”  

“No offense,” Harry says, watching Liam take back his iPad and sort through whatever’s on their agenda today, “but this is, like, a terrible place to have a meeting.”

Gemma and Brian are in the pool with Zoe, who’s sat in the middle of a floaty with two sets of floats on each arm, courtesy of Brian. She keeps trying to stick her face under the water to get a better look, and Gem and Bri keep freaking out and lifting her straight out of the pool. “Your niece for sure,” Louis had said drily.

Louis says now, “Don’t slag him off because you’d rather be playing with the baby.”

The question is on the tip of Harry’s tongue, he’s so close to asking after Belle and Fred, but he stops himself just in time. Actually, Niall stops him, his hand cupping Harry’s smooth shoulder just for a second. Louis watches it all with those sharp eyes. He was the only one who knew that it wasn’t at all pretend for Harry, those years ago; figures that he’d be hot on the case now. Although maybe he’s not sure, not when Niall and Harry were always, well. Close is a fitting enough word.

Liam shoots a grateful, if surprised, look at Louis, and something finally clicks for Harry. He corners him about it later, after he’s had a shower and eaten a grilled chicken salad with mango dressing that the chef gave him the recipe for. Louis’s sat outside on the back deck, scratching his pen into his notepad without writing anything. His hands still tremble sometimes, but not as much. He’s working through it, Harry thinks.

“You substituting us for your kids,” Harry says, sitting in the deck chair beside Louis’s. Louis shoots Harry a dark look. “You called me Freddie that time we went out.” 

“Because you act like a child,” Louis says waspishly. He sniffs, looking down at his hands. He takes a pack of fags out of his pocket and offers one to Harry, who shakes his head no. He’s still got asthma, after all, and he’s got to take care of his voice now if they’re meant to be working with them soon.

Harry’s sadder than he thought he’d be that they’ve got just a week left here. Then everybody goes home for a bit, and they find a producer, and they start recording. After that, he knows, it’s a whirlwind. Somewhere in there they’ve got to fit in the announcement that they’re coming back, too. Liam’s been like a madman making sure he’s fit for it, so he and Harry have taken up long runs along the beach every morning. Louis’s probably just trying to stay sober.

Harry rubs his chin with the back of his hand. He’s still got but a few bristles, his beard never grew in like Des always said it would. Maybe in a few more years. “Louis,” he says softly.

“Are you and Niall going to be okay?” Louis asks.

“Are you and Liam?” Harry asks. He’s known better than to meddle with the two of them. Whatever went tits up, probably only they could understand it.   

“Yeah,” Louis says. He takes a puff from the fag, his cheeks hollowing, and blows it out slow. “You two have your not-thing, Soph still won’t marry Liam, and I’m still trying not to be my own dad.” He grins sideways at Harry, who automatically smiles back. “Everything’s just like it used be.”

Harry takes a deep breath. “We said we’d do it better this time.”

Louis holds Harry’s eye for a long moment. Then he shrugs. “As long as you aren’t bothered by it, then I’m not, either.” He leans forward and stubs out his cigarette on the banister, and then he drops the butt into a planter beside his chair. “Nothing to lose, have I?” he asks. His canines dig into his lip a little and he might look feral or fierce, but he looks too sad for that. He just looks like Louis to Harry, who once could’ve identified the right boy by the way he ate his noodles or styled his hair with his hands pressed together like he was praying.

Harry squints and angles his head, and suddenly it’s like everything about Louis snaps into focus. Harry makes a soft sound of enlightenment. “Have you had a breakup?” he asks. “Just, I remember –”

“No,” Louis cuts him off swiftly. “No, this – it’s the kids, right? They’re what matter.” Harry’s not fully convinced, but he decides to help Louis patch things up with his kids whether Louis wants his help or not. If there’s one thing Harry understands, it’s the way things start to slip without the rest of the band around.

The pool is still and calm, ruffled only by the slight sea breeze. Harry thinks of a phone call he had with Zayn years and years ago now. Talking about Niall. “ _He’s always going to love us better than we deserve,_ ” he remembers saying. “ _We’re always going to disappoint him._ ” Harry runs a hand through his hair surprised, as always, when his rings don’t snag on any tangles.

“The Bungalow,” Louis says, like he can read Harry’s mind.

“We should put up a sign,” Harry suggests. “Like they do at historical landmarks and stuff. ‘One Direction was made here.’”

“Feel like you could put signs like that up everywhere,” Louis says, so that Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere” starts playing in Harry’s head. Harry thinks of Zayn outside by his pool that time Harry rang to pester him about Niall’s birthday, and how Zayn carries one of those signs, too.

Harry takes a picture of the tiny little _x_ on his ankle that night. He props his ankle up on his other knee and sits on the edge of his bed in just his pants. Niall’s meant to sneak in soon, so Harry’s not laying down till he gets there; he’s afraid he might fall asleep the second his head hits the pillow. The Kodak spits out the Polaroid and Harry’s just watching it develop when Niall knocks softly and pokes his head in.

He slides beneath the covers, his soft, familiar sigh like a drop of brandy when Harry has a cold. “What’s that?”

Harry shows it to him. Then he pretends to stick the picture to Niall’s forehead, his expression mock-serious. “Here,” he says.

“Well,” says Niall.

“It’s an inside joke,” Harry explains. He sets the picture aside and snuggles up close to Niall, who wraps an arm around his shoulders. “With Louis.”

“That’s on again, then?” Niall asks, his fingers stroking Harry’s shoulder in the dark. He must be remembering the early days, when Harry and Louis were like evil twins. “Yippee,” Niall says drily, so Harry pinches his side. “Happy for you,” Niall amends himself. Harry sighs and tucks his feet between Niall’s for warmth. He’s going to do his best not to disappoint him.

***

“We didn’t talk about it,” Niall bursts into Harry’s room to say. Harry’s been packing for the better part of two hours, which really means bouncing Zoe in his arms and staring lovingly into her blue-green eyes.

“There’s a fair chance of that, yes,” Harry agrees. “Look, I think she’s trying to talk.”

Harry and Niall watch Zoe’s tiny wet mouth move soundlessly. Niall frowns. “I think she’s got gas.” So Harry turns her round in his arm and starts patting her back. “Anyway, back to what I was saying.”

“Wait just a tick,” Harry says, fetching a bib so that the baby doesn’t drool all over his sleeve. “Okay.”

Niall fidgets with his beautiful birdlike hands like he’s twisting the bird’s head off, and Harry makes himself concentrate on Niall’s face. “You know, when we’d see each other between now and recording. Whether, like, I’d come to you in New York, or you’d visit me. Are you – will you even be staying in New York?”

Harry shrugs. “Here, can you hold her for a second? She’s getting fussy, and Gem said she might get hungry before they get back from market.” So Niall takes the baby. He’s so, so careful, like she’s a bit of china or a stick of dynamite. Harry’s tried telling him that babies are tougher than all that, but Niall doesn’t listen. He sits down very slowly, even his breathing gone careful and measured.

“Christ, she’s little. Are they all this little?”

Harry just hums, reaching out to adjust Zoe’s bib. Niall hasn’t looked away from her face. Harry fetches the bottle from the bottle warmer when it dings, and then he watches Niall carefully hold it for Zoe. He’s got that anxious face on like when they watch Ocean’s Twelve and it’s the bit where the hot French dude dances through the laser maze. Harry pats his knee.

“The Moonlights are going to do a live album show in London,” Niall answers. “Which everyone is invited to, by the way. So I’ve got to find the musicians and rehearse,” he laughs. “What about you?”

“I’ve got a production gig in New York,” Harry says. “And I promised Grimmy and that lot I’d have them for New York Fashion Week.”

Niall snorts. “What do you know about fashion?”

“Well, for starters,” Harry says, stroking the bottom of Zoe’s tiny foot, “I know to wear more than one hat for, like, a year.”

“It was half a year,” Niall argues, his voice far too soft.

Harry watches Niall tug Zoe’s swaddling blanket up under her chin. “It was nice knowing you,” he sighs to Niall, and Niall flashes him a grin. “Could,” Harry starts, hit by an idea. “Could meet in the middle, if you want?”

“What’s in the middle?” Niall asks. “Greenland?”

“Canada,” Harry says. He checks it on his phone. “Actually, a load of water.”

“Canada sounds nice to me,” Niall says. “A weekend, maybe, or whatever we can both steal away.”

Harry just nods. He’s not worried that Niall won’t show or their plans will fall through, not when he knows Niall would show up even if they weren’t sleeping together. It’s not showing up that makes Harry’s stomach feel like it’s housing a small but violent tornado.

Niall leans over Zoe to touch Harry’s cheek. “We’re good, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees immediately. He takes Zoe from Niall when she starts fussing, her cries never louder than a soft snuffling before she settles down. “We’re okay.”

Harry and Niall and Louis take separate cars to the airport. Harry drives Gemma and Bri and the baby, who dozes in her carseat for half the ride. Gemma dangles a soft toy in her face for the other half despite Harry’s insistence that Zoe’s silence is a leftover survival instinct so she’s technically torturing her own daughter. Brian concentrates on navigating Harry through the narrow French streets without running down any innocent French civilians.

“What if one of them is a murderer, though?” Harry asks, pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “Like, not that I’m pro death sentence or whatever, probably, but you do walk by eight murderers in your lifetime.”

Gemma reaches into the front seat and grabs Harry’s ear. “I’m about to become one,” she says sweetly, so Harry stops talking for the rest of the ride. He pulls up to the airport and illegally parks at the drop-off area because that’s what everybody does.

“I love you,” Harry tells the baby and Brian, who goes in to kiss Harry’s cheek like he thinks Harry’s his wife.

“Sorry,” Brian shakes his head. He tucks his face down like he’s embarrassed. He’s glowing with a tan and Harry tries to remember him like this, not like the scatter-brained dad he’s going to be for the better part of the next two decades. He’s terribly fond of him.

“Come back soon,” Harry says sympathetically, patting Brian on the shoulder.

Gemma pulls Harry into a tight hug, and Harry breathes in her smell, flowers and paper and ink, a smell like growing up and leaving home. She cradles the back of his skull in her hand just like he’s her baby, and Harry closes his eyes, his face mashed against her hair. “I know something’s up with you,” she says. “Tell me when you’re ready, eh? I love you.”

Harry touches her chin. _My favorite person,_ he wants to say. It wouldn’t be fair, not with her having a husband and a baby. Not when she couldn’t say it back, and she’d have to hurt him. Instead, Harry smiles, kisses her forehead, and says, “See you at Christmas.”

“Plan on it,” Gemma says. She punches him once, lightly, on the stomach, and then she and her family hustle into the airport to fly home. Harry watches Louis’s and Niall’s cars pull up behind him, and he watches them unload in his rearview. He doesn’t hesitate to drive away, the rest of that lot still showing in his side mirrors. He’ll see them again. Soon.

Liam greets Harry on the porch. He’s sat with Rumour in his lap on the swinging bench, so Harry gingerly sits down beside him. Rumour lifts his flank just to set his ass down on Harry’s leg, and Harry laughs and scratches his dog’s back. He’d complained a little when everybody else got to leave before making sure the Bungalow was ready to go into storage, basically, with only Liam’s help, but now that he’s here he can’t say he regrets it. Seems like his life goes that way a lot, actually.

“Just you and me again,” Liam grins at Harry. It’s his squinty-eyed grin, the one he and Zayn both had, and Harry can’t even pretend not to be delighted by him.

Harry stretches his legs out in front of him. They can see the land rise from this angle, the sloped French coast rising from their little house on a clifftop up to a grassy plateau. House lights flicker on in the gathering darkness, and Harry can almost imagine he can see the families moving around inside.

“Thanks,” Harry feels he has to say. “For getting this started. It’d not have been done without you.”

Liam ruffles Harry’s hair with his sweaty hand, so Harry scowls and pushes him away, gently, by the wrist. “Nah,” he just says. He gets up, sliding out from under Rumour’s head, and calls, “Pasta okay for dinner?”

“Course,” Harry calls back. He waits till the sky’s gone a dark, dark blue and he can’t see the shape of trees on the hill or the rocky crags leading up to the plateau, just the houses lit up, to go inside.

***

Harry flies home to New York on a Tuesday, and by Thursday, he’s back in the studio working with a baby band on their debut album. “Baby band” – that’s what Liam and Harry call their first acts whenever Liam rings him up to chat workout routines and they get stuck on the phone together, neither quite talking to the person they most want to talk to, soothed by the familiarity all the same.

“I don’t think we were ever a baby band,” Harry murmurs low into the receiver, trying not to let the band on the other side of the glass wall know that he’s having a chat on the phone while they’re banging out their first single. It’s not that they’ve not got any talent, it’s that they’ve no idea what to do with it.

Harry understands that. When his own band went on hiatus, he’d thought about it a little, especially after Niall left and it was just Rumour and Harry in his echoing LA mansion. Going solo, hitting the road again as fast as possible, getting back into the grind that was the only way he’s known how to live since he was sixteen. That hadn’t been the point of the break, though. They were meant to learn how to be functional people on their own.

That, and the fact that Harry had worn out his voice so much after five years of relentless vocals that he’d woken up one morning unable to make any noise. Panic isn’t quite the right word; what he felt was more like distress, like something he knew would happen eventually and it’d finally happened. What did Gemma call that thing once, that old story? The Sword of Damocles. Yeah, something like that.

Anyway, and so he’d had to have surgery to fix it. He was in on a Sunday and out by Wednesday, and he knows his voice is fixed, now. Technically, he knows. The thing is, when you lose something you’ve based your whole life around it just doesn’t feel as secure as it did before you lost it. There’s always the chance it could leave you again.

Liam snorts. “Please. You _were_ a baby on the X-Factor.”

Harry narrows his eyes. “If this you slagging me off for being chubby…”

“You were cute,” Liam says benignly. Harry finds himself smiling down at the array of dials and sliders on the console in front of him, undeniably pleased. “How’s work going, then?”

Harry glances up at the baby band in his recording booth, whose recording session has devolved into a shouting match. Harry mutes the feed into the booth he hasn’t really been listening to anyway and trains his eyes on them while he answers, “They’re finding their footing. That’s what I meant about us, though. We always got on.”

“We did not!” Liam squawks. “I hated Louis,” he says peaceably. “I didn’t much like you either, to be honest. Niall was alright, and Zayn.”

“Everybody’s favorite is Niall,” Harry grumbles. “I’m going to be my own favorite.”

Liam just laughs. “You were always his favorite, idiot.”

Harry smiles, doodling Zoe onto the border of his notebook. The band inside the sound booth have burnt themselves down to exasperation, which Harry knows means he’s probably got five minutes left to chat. “Sophia is my favorite, then.”

“Oi,” Liam says, without heat. Harry listens to him breathe over the phone, soft and regular, even though he can hear Liam’s boot heels click across the floor as he moves about. He’s got all that restless, ceaseless energy about him again, and it’s soothing to Harry in a way that it was only ever absolutely fucking annoying when they were young and he was trying to fit a nap in. That’s probably what they’ll be back to when they start touring again and there’s no time for sleep between endless promotional deals and meet and greets and shows.

Maybe they aren’t doing all that kind of stuff this time around, though. Louis’s always said maybe nobody wants them anymore. That’d be strange, and maybe not totally unwelcome. Niall’s always going on about the Busted lads and they’ve… _faded_ isn’t quite the right word, but settled. Like the planets in the lampshade in Niall’s bedroom, Niall leaning back in his desk chair to show Harry and point out the constellations he lets lull him to sleep. Like their band has hit the perfect level of orbital resonance to hold together.

For a while. Even planets fall out of orbit with each other.

“Well, I’ll let you go,” Liam finally ventures.

Harry frowns. “Hey,” he says, cradling his phone to his cheek while he watches the band settle back behind their instruments and the microphone. He can give them a break, if he needs to. “You alright?”

“Just ready,” Liam says, and Harry knows he’s grinning like a little boy. “Just can’t wait.”

“I’m writing that down so I’ll have proof later when you’re going mad in your hotel room because we can’t leave.”

“If we’re lucky,” Liam just says, and rings off.

Harry makes a note in his journal, unmutes the sound booth, and asks the band to start again.

He walks Rumour home, his collar turned up against the blustery New York street. It’s only September yet, but the cold feels biting and sharp. He doesn’t flush like Niall does, either, he just gets pale and shrunken, like some kind of shrew. It’s a constant source of annoyance. Not that Rumour particularly cares.

He’s such a good boy, Harry thinks fondly, ruffling the fur at the top of Rumour’s head. He comes to work with Harry at least three days a week and waits patiently for Harry, and he normally doesn’t even pee inside the studio. Plus, taking him down for a wee on the tiny spot of green beside a sapling growing outside of the studio is sometimes Harry’s best excuse for a break. Good dog.

“Harry?” a woman asks.

Harry braces himself for any number of scenarios. The most likely is a fan. That’s okay, that still happens, he knows what to do. It might be someone he knows, and that’s alright, too. He’s got lots of friends in New York, and if only they don’t mind huddling somewhere out of the cold with him, he’d love it.

Somehow, Harry’s not expecting to turn and find Taylor Swift with a hesitant smile on her perfectly made-up face, her hand clasped around a leash.

“Olivia,” Harry says in surprise. “You can walk a cat?”

“Harry,” Taylor repeats, laughter in her voice now. She reaches out and pulls him into one of those slightly awkward one-armed hugs that want so bad to be proper hugs, but they’ve got their hands full. And he can smell her perfume, now, anyway, something expensive – Chanel, Harry thinks he remembers vaguely – and then his head is full of the scent, and the car in his memory, when he used to drive past her house in LA after things between them ended so abruptly.

It makes him nostalgic in a way that he didn’t understand before, when he was so young and she was the age he is now. The teenage heartache, and the confusion, and feeling desperately like he’d messed something up before he really ever knew what it was worth.

“You look cold,” Taylor smiles, her flawless lipstick contrasting beautifully with her white teeth. She glances over her shoulder, at the security guard Harry actually recognizes from when he’d dated Taylor. Shayla, he thinks her name is. He nods, and she nods back. “I was on my way home to cook dinner, if you’d like to come?” Taylor asks. Harry eyes the canvas bag stuffed with a loaf of artisan bread and fresh tomatoes, and he shrugs and says, “Why not?”

“I didn’t know you could take a cat for a walk,” Harry returns to when he and Rumour have fallen into step beside Taylor. The tiny bell around Olivia’s neck jangles as she trots to keep up.

“She’s my life companion,” Taylor says in that breezy, self-deprecating way of hers. Harry glances at her sideways. He remembers that tone, and he makes a mental note not to say something stupid while he’s at hers. He’s done enough damage to this relationship for one lifetime, thanks.

Harry rubs his thumb against the leather handle of Rumour’s leash. Harry can hear the cameras shutter and the flash occasionally illuminates Rumour’s flank, the silvery purse glinting in the crook of Taylor’s arm, the cracks on the pavement in front of them. It’s been a while, he realizes, since all that was for him.

Taylor lives in a beautiful, classic-looking building in Manhattan that’s so her it almost hurts. Shayla escorts them all the way into the lift and up to her flat. Taylor hands Harry her keys, so Harry lets them in while Taylor takes the bag of groceries from Shayla and confirms tomorrow’s schedule.

He rocks on his heels in the doorway, overcome with that same new nostalgia. He’s going to have to call his mum later and ask if that’s something that just, like, happens as you get older. Her flat smells the same as her house in LA, like that potpourri that you leave on a burner for ages in the fall to make your house smell like autumn: oranges and cinnamon and clove, sharp and vital and bittersweet.

A knitted blanket is hung over the back of her white leather couch, which is layered with throw pillows. The pristine wooden floorboards are softened with a white fur rug in front of the unlit fireplace, and her pots and pans dangle from a rack on the ceiling. It’s undeniably beautiful. It feels a little empty.

Taylor flips the kitchen lights on, so Harry follows her in. He kneels beside the antique wooden table to let Rumour off his leash, and Meredith noses her way over to him. She immediately presses her tiny cat face into the heel of his hand, and Harry smiles, strokes her back. He loves cats. They’re like little slinkies, the way they bend and move.

“She remembers you,” Taylor observes, her smile a little closer to fond.

“I used to sneak her treats,” Harry confesses. Rumour licks Meredith’s face so that half her fur ends up going the wrong way, and Meredith hisses, raising one warning paw. Sufficiently rebuked, Rumour curls up in a ball under the table, his eyes on Harry like, _What are we doing here?_

“What’s for dinner?” Harry asks. He rolls up the sleeves of his soft jumper and washes his hands at the sink. “How can I help?”

Taylor hands him a flannel for him to dry his hands on. “I was thinking spaghetti and garlic bread?”

Harry groans. “God, yes. Are we mincing the garlic ourselves?”

“Wouldn’t be me if we didn’t,” Taylor says, and pushes the grocery bag over to Harry. Taylor puts on a DeYarmond Edison album on vinyl and starts chopping tomato and bell pepper and Italian sausages for the pasta sauce. Harry sets about crushing the garlic bulbs under the heel of his palm so that he can start peeling it. He’s always loved the way the smell of garlic lingers on his hands and fingers for ages afterwards, always catches himself sniffing at his sleeves for one last whiff.

Taylor clears her throat softly. “So, how’s your life?”

“Well,” Harry squints. “Let’s see. What have the tabloids been saying?”

“You’re dating me, you’re dating Kendall, and your dog is a drug mule,” Taylor says, screwing up her eyes as if she’s struggling to remember.

Harry laughs, nudges her with his elbow. “All true, of course.”

“For real, though?” Taylor prompts him.

She carries a silver pot over to the tap to fill with water, and when she turns her head to look at him, the light catches on the side of her face same as it ever did, when he was so sure he was in love with her. Harry scratches the side of his nose. “Seen the lads,” Harry says. Then, because it doesn’t feel quite so much like jinxing themselves with Taylor nodding silently, her big eyes unblinking, “was thinking of, maybe, getting the band back together.”

He couldn’t have anticipated the way that she smiles, or how sad it’d be. “‘Course you are. You and your other halves,” Taylor says. Sometimes, when she talks, Harry could swear she speaks in song lyrics.

He cocks his head. “What do you mean?”

Taylor sets the heavy pot on the burner and ignites the hob, and then she folds her arms across her chest and leans against the counter. She doesn’t look defensive, not with her arms so loose, the round muscles of her shoulders and forearms flexing the tiniest bit. _Beautiful_ , Harry thinks, not for the first time.

“Dating you was like dating the whole band,” Taylor says. There’s an edge of humor to her voice, and something else, too, soft and sweet, like marshmallow crème. “You and your four boyfriends.”

“Three,” Harry clears his throat. “And the boyfriends line, that was always Zayn’s.” Harry smiles to think of it now, Zayn at eighteen and forever frustrated by Harry and Niall making a mess of the dressing room and Louis doing his utmost to annoy Liam. He was their center, sometimes. A lot of the time, maybe.

Taylor smiles, absently stroking her own arm. “Even so.” Harry minces the garlic with a sharp knife, his eyes trained on the cutting board so that he doesn’t accidentally nick his own finger.

He can feel her eyes on the side of his face and hear Rumour’s tail wagging against the leg of a chair, and if he squints, he can imagine this is another life and he’s home. He wonders why it’s not this life, and then he asks.

“I think,” Taylor says slowly, moving closer to him to watch him work the knife quickly across the garlic pods, “and I’m not sure, but I think it’s because there wasn’t room for me when we were together. You and those boys came first.”

“They were like,” Harry starts. Like his day was totally, absolutely abnormal if he didn’t see the four of them spread out on couches in the green room or fit into the tinted Range Rover with him in the midst of a life that was utterly different from day to day. Rumour’s tail swishes across the floor.

Niall used to tell him all about space exploration missions, and the teams that went into space, and that’s how Harry thinks of what One Direction were. Like the staff on a long-term space colonization mission, each with their area of expertise, each absolutely critical. And then somehow Zayn brought them back to Earth, and they got to see it all for what it really was, slowly, on the long descent.

Harry smiles at Taylor when he realizes she’s still waiting for him to speak. “Yeah,” he finally says. “That was probably it.”

“That and you kept making out with models,” Taylor says, her hand on his hip for a second. Then she brushes past him and fetches the colander from the cupboard beside the fridge, so Harry adds the garlic to the pasta sauce. Taylor holds the colander above the sink and Harry pours the pasta noodles out of the silver cooking pot, straining the water out, and then Taylor brings over a red serving bowl. She mixes the pasta sauce in with a few expert flicks of her wrist. Harry finds himself saying, “I really did like 1989, though.”

Taylor laughs so hard that she almost drops the serving dish, so Harry puts his hands on his hips. “What?” he demands. “I was being honest!”

“Honey,” Taylor says, tapping his chin. She grabs them each a fork from a drawer and settles herself at her wooden table. Harry sits caddycorner to her, Rumour shoving his head into Harry’s lap. Harry strokes his soft fur. Taylor serves them both steaming plates of pasta. “Okay,” Taylor says, when she’s swallowed her first bite.

She twirls her fork around and around until she has a neat bite of pasta, and then she daintily pops it into her mouth. Harry’s process is less pristine. He scoops up a huge mouthful of pasta and just shoves it in his gob, hoping most of it lands, and then he slurps up the rest.

“Okay what?” Harry asks warily. Rumour has shoved his big ol’ dog head up into Harry’s crotch, so he slips the dog a sliver of sausage to stop assaulting him.

Taylor rests her chin on her hand, her lips curled up in a close-lipped smile, and Harry has a feeling deep in the center of his chest, like the pat of butter they just dropped into boiling water to keep the noodles from sticking to the inside of the pot.

“With ‘I Want to Write You a Song,’” he starts, ages after his first aborted attempt in “I Love You” to write what went down between them, “I dunno, like. I s’pose I got it then, you know?”

“What’s that?” Taylor asks. She hasn’t moved to take another bite, all her attention politely and patiently focused on Harry. Harry squeezes Rumour’s shoulders together with his knees just for the comfort of knowing he’s there.

Harry clears his throat. “The way that a song isn’t the person you’re talking about, necessarily. Sometimes it’s what they mean to you, what that time meant to you. I don’t know.”

“No, you’re right,” Taylor says. She picks her fork up again and sets about twirling her fork around until she has another neat bite of spaghetti. “I’m glad you get it now.”

“I wanted to be that guy, you know?” Harry asks, thinking of “Perfect” now. He hadn’t meant to write so many songs about her, and then he’d sat down and started thinking of the ways that her songs meant something special to her because _she_ wrote them, and, well. “Like, the tall, dark, handsome bloke you meet at the bar who whisks you off your feet. All that shite,” he laughs.

Taylor raises her wineglass to Harry in a toast. “To not being mysterious at all.”

“To you,” Harry says, because he reckons he owes her that, after all this time.

Taylor just smiles.

Harry walks home with Rumour’s leash wound around his hand, his collar turned up against the wind, and a doggie bag full of leftovers for lunch tomorrow. The first thing he does when he gets in is to wave hello to Wes, who asks what he’s got there, so Harry gives him Taylor’s pasta. Then he goes upstairs to his flat, where he powers on his laptop. He leaves it on the desktop and sets about getting out of as many of his clothes as possible, his heater already turned up to seventy-eight.

“Ooh, starting off with a a show, then?” Niall’s voice comes through the speaker a little tinny, but it’s still so warm and familiar that Harry can’t help himself smiling when he’s done dumping his coat on his bed. “Where are we?” Niall squints.

“My room,” Harry says, forgetting that Niall isn’t actually standing in his flat. He seems to be sat on his bed, wearing a gray t-shirt. His face is a little drawn with exhaustion, and his hair is rumpled and pulled to one side like he’s been running his hands through it. Harry breathes a little easier just looking at him. “Wait, I’ll give you the grand tour. I’ve redecorated.” Harry carries the laptop with him to the walk-in closet, where he sets the computer on the edge of the bureau that holds his jumpers and underwear and kicks his boots vaguely in direction of the shoe rack. Then he pulls his shirt off over his head without bothering to unbutton it. He lets it fall to the floor.

“You should put that in the hamper,” Niall opines, a guitar on his lap now. He’s pushed his computer back a little for space to play, and Harry can see the cutoff end of his soft shorts, the scar on his knee white with cold. Niall runs a lot warmer than Harry, though.

“I’ll do it tonight,” Harry says dismissively, which is code for, He’ll do it in a week when his laundry service comes to pick up all of his dirty clothes and have them washed for him. Anyway, he’ll pick it up eventually. When Harry’s left in just a pair of soft joggers and the thickest socks he could find in the drawer, he picks the laptop up again. “My room,” Harry says, doing a less-than-graceful turn to show Niall around.

Niall winces. “I’m going to throw up if you keep doing that.”

Harry totes Niall to the bathroom. “The bog,” he says, studying his face in the mirror until Niall plays a soft B minor. “Living room,” Harry shows Niall, “kitchen.” He had only redecorated, not had construction teams come in to restyle the place like he had his houses in London or LA. This flat’s only a rental, after all, and Harry just hadn’t been able to try and change the bones of it when he had such good memories here.

“Can’t see anything but your tit,” Niall tells Harry, when Harry cradles the laptop to his side while he sets about making an evening cuppa. Harry sets the laptop down on the counter and shuffles over to the cupboard that holds his mugs and fills one with water. He’s not even a proper Brit these days, he thinks, and sticks the mug in the microwave. He might as well not even be English.

“I had dinner with Taylor today,” Harry tells Niall, who just continues strumming random chords on the guitar.

“Yeah?” Niall asks. “How’d that go?”

Harry shrugs, bracing his hands on the granite counter while he watches the mug rotate slowly in the microwave. Outside, a woman in a black coat gets out of a taxi, and a man in a gray blazer takes her place. The taxi trundles off, and that’s that. “Was nice, I guess.”

“Did she try to get into your pants?” Niall asks, pausing playing to take a sip from his own cup of tea.

Harry pretends to be shocked and offended. “No. I think we’re too old for that. Anyway, I’ve got you now.”

Niall glances into the camera same time as Harry looks at the screen, so it seems that they’re making eye contact. “Yeah,” he just says, soft and firm.

Niall adjusts the strings at the top of the guitar, and then he plays the opening chords to “Where Do Broken Hearts Go,” soft and sweet. Harry settles into bed with his cuppa and a book and his journal, not sure if he wants to read or write. There’s also a Grey’s Anatomy marathon on, so he scrunches down against the headboard and flips it on, his books tumbling to the end of the bed.

Next time, he’ll have to try and get home earlier so they can get up to some funny business before bed. For the minute, it’s nice to have Niall playing guitar in his ear and McDreamy’s soft voice burring on the telly. Rumour stretches himself out beside Harry in bed and Harry scratches his fingers over Rumour’s soft belly, Rumour huffing at him for it, and then he settles back against the pillows and lets himself relax.

When he wakes up the next morning, he plugs his laptop into the charger and wakes it from hibernation mode. Niall hasn’t cut his feed, has just left his laptop open at his desk with a sticky note stuck to the desk chair. _Good morning._

And it is.

***

Grimmy piles into the back of the limousine Harry hired to pick him up from the airport and throws his bag directly onto Harry’s lap. Harry, of course, hunches over as though Grimmy has just ruined all chance of Harry ever having kids.

“Shut up, popstar,” Grimmy says, leaning in to give Harry a hug and cheeky kiss on the side of his face. Douglas and Daisy and Pixie slide into the long backseat next. Harry leans over Grimmy to accept a kiss and a hug from each, and then Harry opens the hidden compartment in the back of the limo and gives Grimmy a bottle of champagne. He passes around plastic flutes next.

“Getting sloshed first thing, ooh, we are riding in style – Styles,” Daisy jokes, her lips curling up into a sharp smile.

Pixie swats Daisy’s arm. “Don’t joke about riding the baby, hon, he’s barely legal.” She winks at Harry.

“I’m twenty-seven!” Harry argues, smiling in spite of himself.

Grimmy knocks back his flute of champagne and smacks his lips, and Harry rolls his eyes. Positively droll, he thinks, in Grimmy’s own accent. Harry misses having Grimmy around when he sees him again, which is usually the way it goes for Harry. He makes a joke out of almost everything, which is nice, because a good bit of the time the people being nice to Harry are the ones who want something from him.

“We are swell and posh, aren’t we?” Grimmy asks, eyeing the limousine.

“Special for you and your giant head,” Harry says brightly, and Grimmy laughs and leans back into his seat even as he tries to shove his hand into the open side of Harry’s shirt and twist his nipple.

Harry screams and rolls into Daisy’s lap. She spills her champagne all over his shirt, and he apologizes, and she makes him refill her glass. It’s good to have them back.

Grimmy’s gang of remarkably dressed beautiful people settle in Harry’s flat like they own the place, which is generally how he prefers his houseguests to behave. His mum has all the hostess skills of Betty Crocker herself, or whoever it is on the front of pancake boxes in this country, but Harry is still too used to being the guest himself. And he always had an easier time of it doing what he liked, really.

New York Fashion Week is like London Fashion Week in that a lot of very beautiful people flock to the city to watch designers’ works parade down the runway on some of the slinkiest bodies Harry’s ever seen. Unlike London, though, there’s a seediness to New York, a grime to it, that makes the grungiest hole in the wall club the best place to be after a show, and if you get drunk on four hundred dollar-a-bottle wine then you’ve missed out on all the cheap peach schnapps floating around.

At least, that’s what Grimmy tells Harry when he’s piss drunk in Harry’s flat that first night. They’re sat on the balcony off Harry’s bedroom. It’s just a few square meters with a couple of outdoor chairs and a little table, but it feels like a throne, with Grimmy steadily working his way through a pack of fags. The city is spread out before them like their very own kingdom, and Harry starts humming “City of Blinding Lights” under his breath, like the city itself is singing with it.

“Missed you,” Grimmy says, apropos of nothing. He uses the lit end of his last fag to light his next and stubs the old one out on the railing in front of them. The damp metal sizzles a little bit, a light mist of rain falling over the city.

“Yeah?” Harry asks. He takes a deep breath, tasting rain and cigarette smoke and Grimmy’s particular odor, his musky cologne and his sweat, which always smells of fruit. “Missed you too.”

Grimmy laughs just enough for Harry to hear how humorless it is. “D’you reckon it’s worth it?” he asks. “Not being able to be around each other, or what they’ve done to you and Louis, to have it back?”

Harry very deliberately doesn’t react, he just slowly folds his hands in his lap and studies them like he doesn’t know the shape of his own slender fingers, the rings he’s kept wearing for years and years now so that his skin stays pressed like he’s wearing a ring for ages after he takes it off. He lifts the Kodak and snaps a picture of Grimmy’s face, not the wild grin he usually wears: instead, the serious big brother face he only dons when he’s trying to protect Harry, even when what he’s trying to protect Harry from is himself.

“It never bothered me,” Harry finally says, when the film is developing. He tucks it inside his shirtfront pocket to protect it from the rain. “What they said about me and you, or me and Louis. It was all lies.”

“I was a little in love with you,” Grimmy refutes.

Harry laughs, and there _is_ humor in it. Grimmy laughs, too. “Haven’t you heard? Everybody is.”

“This beautiful little thing,” Grimmy coos, “a young Mick Jagger, fell into my lap like a gift from the gods. Of course I was a little in love.”

Even after all this time, it’s not hard for Harry to remember the heady days at the start of the band taking off, when he still considered London his real home and he’d only ever vaguely considered moving somewhere with more sun. When he coiffed his hair up like all the fashionable young lads were doing, and his jeans had leather patches on them, and he’d wanted everything, all of it.

Like he was a little kid at a buffet and he could stuff all of the excitement and the hype into himself to keep, like he could capture some of it. That’s just a dream, of course. He never really could. And now it’s just a vague memory, soft and almost nostalgic with time, like most people feel about their secondary school sports teams. Just. Another life, really.

“I was in love with it, too,” Harry says.

“It?” Grimmy asks, his eyebrows up. “I’m a _man,_ Harold.”

Harry laughs, again, and this time it’s all soft sweetness. Grimmy melts a little in reply, like he can feel it. He seems to have shrunken around his skeleton with time, so that there’s less baby fat in him, though he’d been grown when he and Harry met. More like he just is what he is, less mystery or drama, less padding, really.

“I just think,” Harry starts slowly, even slower than he normally talks, “that, I don’t know. You didn’t love me, really, in that way. You loved it. The music, and the excitement. You remember what it was like to fall in love with your favorite band?”

Grimmy’s eyes have gotten all shiny with fondness. He says, “My wise little popstar. ‘Course I do. It was the Cure, and I was listening to _Wish_ on the floor of my nan’s house and I thought I’d had my first orgasm.”

Harry laughs out loud, tasting Grimmy’s cigarette smoke and rain and his own flat, smelling of vanilla and cinnamon candles, and he could die from love of it all, he thinks. He’s still in love with it. “Yeah,” Harry says. “That’s what we were, I bet.”

Grimmy just reaches over and ruffles Harry’s curly hair, and then he stands up out of his chair that is really more of a throne, his balance perfectly secure. “C’mon, love,” he says. “Let’s have some drinks.”

Harry takes Grimmy and his gang to fashion shows the remainder of the week, and Grimmy’s passes get them backstage, into the frantic mess of designers hurriedly pinning dresses and things that Harry’s not quite sure what they are onto waif-like models. People shout about getting in place in five seconds and “no, not you there, you _there,_ ” and it makes Harry terribly, utterly excited for going back on tour himself.

“Surprised you’re not thinking of modeling,” Niall says, sounding sleepy, when Harry calls him secretly at dinner. He’s snuck into the loo to have a private chat, which he sort of regrets, because the bog smells like piss. Harry darts out into the alley behind the steakhouse, instead, the air still smelling of woodsmoke and cooking meat, like the barbecues Niall sometimes throws in his own backyard. “You and them shirts with your name on, and all.”

Harry huffs. “It was embroidery, and I only had it done on a few things.”

“Half your wardrobe,” Niall murmurs, a smile in his voice.

“Kay, well,” Harry hesitates, kicking at an empty beer bottle at his foot. His voice echoes a little in the narrow gap between red brick buildings, and the night air is cold and a little dingy, like New York is at all times except when fresh snow coats everything in a layer of magic. “I’ll let you get to sleep.”

“Nah, ‘s okay,” Niall says. “We’ll let them think you’re taking a shit.”

A laugh is startled out of Harry. “I wish you were here,” he blurts. “I mean, I know you’re busy doing your thing. Just wish, y’know. I don’t know.”

“I always wish you were here,” Niall says easily. His voice sounds so warm on this cold street, Harry just wants to reach through the phone and loop his arms around his neck, bite his face.

Harry bites his lip, trying to suppress his smile. “Do you still wish you loved me a little less sometimes?” he asks.

“Only when you’re slagging me off,” Niall says sweetly, so that Harry makes a soft crowing sound. “‘Course not.”

“Alright, well,” Harry says, lingering in this back alley. “I’ve got to go tell my mates I’ve just taken a shit.”

“Bless,” Niall laughs, ringing off. Harry stands in the alley looking at the phone in his hand for a long, long minute. Then he slides it back into his pocket and takes his seat beside Grimmy, who loads his plate with an extra garlic roll with an exaggerated wink.

Harry tells him the table is no place for toilet humor, and Douglas kicks Harry’s leg under the table, his eyebrows way up when he apologizes. Prat, Harry thinks, delightedly.

“I’m going to miss you,” Harry tells Grimmy, meaning it, when it’s time to take him and his crew back to JFK to fly home.

Grimmy hugs him close to his broad chest, and if Harry closes his eyes, he could almost believe he’s just seventeen, and he’s got no clue what lays ahead. He leaves his eyes open. Harry pulls away from the airport and goes for a drive with no real destination in mind, just driving around. He used to do this a lot more in LA, and when he was younger, with less work to do. He probably won’t have a chance for a good wandering drive in a long time, and the thought makes him itch for another midnight run, like he used to do.

He takes Rumour out with him that night because the little lad whines at him deep in his throat until Harry acquiesces and latches his leash on, and then they’re off, jogging up to Central Park at a stately pace that’s not too fast for Rumour, not too slow for Harry. He doesn’t always go all the way into the park, not as deep as he’ll go when he’s sure he’s not been spotted and he doesn’t need a quick way out. He gets to enjoy the run today, the way the wind blows his hair back and he can only just hear Rumour’s feet on the kerb over the sound of Adele belting it out in his ears. He listened to this album a lot – maybe too much – when he was still sulking around his house in LA after Niall left, watching him grow close with Selena and wondering if he really was all that replaceable.

Harry remembers the months and days after the band quite clearly, except for the stretch there with Niall, which is like – it’s not quite like a memory, is it? It’s like the way he recalls his earliest memories, as impressions and crystalline, sparkling moments, like photographs. Mostly he remembers Niall stood onstage in the Grand Olympic, his guitar slung over his front, singing like he had nothing to prove but he was going to prove something anyway. _Your life as a rope of diamonds: permanent, flashing_ , Harry suddenly remembers, from a poem he must’ve read ages and ages ago. These memories of Niall aren’t like that, they’re too much…a part of him.

Maybe that’s why he’d felt so desperate with Kendall. He’d felt like some kind of leaky bucket, like he absolutely had to pour all this pent-up love into somebody else because otherwise it’d be lost. ‘Course, now he knows love doesn’t work like that. It just is, and comes and goes on its own terms. Harry wishes that were a little less scary.

Without quite knowing why, Harry finds himself returning to the garage underneath his building. He loads Rumour up into the passenger seat, Rumour's tongue lolling out of his mouth. And he drives them back to the airport. Harry buys himself a seat on the first plane to LA, and he flies out fifty-five minutes later with nothing but Rumour in the seat beside him.

***

“Come get me,” Harry says into the phone in his pocket. He pushes his sunglasses down so that they’re not holding back his hair anymore and curls instantly fall into his face.

“No,” says Louis. Then, “Where are you?”

“I’m at LAX,” Harry says patiently. “Security have me in a little bolt-hole that I’m pretty sure used to be a phone booth because someone spotted me, and Rumour drooled on me on the plane, and I really need a wee.”

Louis answers, “Go home.”

“No,” Harry says stubbornly. “Come get me.”

“Fine,” Louis says, and hangs up.

Harry leans out of the ridiculous phone booth of a security bolt hole and says, “He’ll be here in twenty.”

In reality it takes Louis forty minutes to roll up to the airport in a taxi, and then he mistakenly tries to find Harry in the airport, and he gets shoved into the security area with Harry. He’s rethinking his original phone booth idea and, actually, maybe this is a holding cell for a potential criminal. It’s very cold, and no one will let Harry go for a wee.

“There my boys are,” Sophia says, when she comes to get them half an hour later and a fairly embarrassing phone call later. Her perfectly made up lips twitch. “Can’t let you two go anywhere, can I?”

“Blame this one,” Louis says, jerking a thumb at Harry.

“I didn’t make him come get me while he was shit-f – while he was under the weather,” Harry amends himself. He frowns, lowering his voice. “What happened to teetotaling?”

Sophia waves her hand to shush them until she slides behind the steering wheel of her very posh, very practical Range Rover. Harry turns around to look at Louis in the backseat, slumped over the seat belt holding him in place, his pale brown hair hanging around his face. “Lou,” Harry says softly. “Mate.”

Louis’s head snaps up, and his eyes are red-rimmed, his mouth harsh and twisted down at the corners. “What’s the point?” he demands. “I’m going on tour with you lot in a few months, aren’t I, if it goes well. Might as well let her get full custody, then the kids would be happy.”

“Louis,” Harry sucks in a shocked breath. He turns around in his seat so that he won’t say the first thing that pops into his head, “ _That sounds like something your own dad would’ve said about you._ ” Harry thinks about what Anne Twist would say, and Bobby Horan in his little fishing boat on Loch Siobhair in deep green Ireland, and he turns and says, “Just because you aren’t a traditional dad doesn’t mean you can’t be a good one. We’ve raised plenty of kids on tour.”

“Lux,” Louis says acidly. “One.”

Harry’s heart swells with pride. Lux, his little love. “And she’s perfect,” he says.

“She doesn’t fit in,” Louis says, his eyes on the window.

It sets Harry’s head reeling. He shakes his head, his curls bouncing, and Rumour’s head pops up over the top of the backseat. “She hasn’t found her crowd yet,” Harry says evenly. Louis looks round at him warily. Harry swallows. “That’s all she needs, really.”

Sophia gets them home to Louis’s house with the promise of updating Liam later – Harry’s phone is long dead, and good luck to anyone trying to find anything in Louis’s house – and Harry puts Louis to bed. He curls up on top of his duvet with his shoes still on, so Harry spends the rest of the afternoon nosing about his house for any booze or pills he can dig up. He flushes it all down the sink, and then he goes to call Briana.

“I want him to want to have a relationship with our kids,” Briana says, sounding just as even-minded and lovely as she ever did. Harry remembers thinking that she looked a bit like sunshine that first time he met her backstage at one of their shows, her belly swollen and that hopeful smile on her face.

“He does want,” Harry says firmly. “He just…” And Harry knows he probably shouldn’t say, not when these memories belong to a Harry that was proper friends with Louis, not who hasn’t merely worked out a tremulous truce wherein they can look at each other without flinching. “Doesn’t feel like he deserves them,” Harry finally says.

Briana sighs like she’s already figured that out.

“Just give him another chance,” Harry asks. Begs, pleads. Whatever it takes. He can’t have the band back without Louis. He can’t have the band back without Louis’s babies. Even Harry isn’t sure if it’s just that, or if it’s just that this is Louis, that makes him so desperate. “I promise he’ll do better this time.”

“How can you promise that?” Briana asks dubiously. “You hardly know him.”

“He’s my – he’s like my brother,” Harry says. Not like Brian, who Harry loves dearly in the same way that he loves his aunties and uncles; he loves Louis like he loves Liam, like he loved Zayn and in one of the ways that he loves Niall. It’s as simple, and as complicated, as that. “I promise,” Harry repeats. “He won’t disappoint you.”

Harry waits to tell Louis about calling Briana on his behalf till Liam’s come around so there will, at least, be a witness to his murder.

“You did _what_?” Louis demands, then winces, cupping his forehead. Liam passes him a couple of paracetamol and a glass of water, which Louis guzzles down in a matter of seconds. “Thanks,” he tells Liam, his voice rough.

“Why didn’t you call?” Liam asks in his soft, fatherly tone he’s been whipping out on them since they were teenagers. It sounds so much more believable now, is the thing. “I was right there, just up the road, the whole time.”

“You were busy,” Louis waves his hand. His shoulders slump. “I was busy, and I neglected you, and I didn’t know how to say sorry. Alright?” he asks waspishly. “Can somebody get me a drink? Wait, I’ll get it myself.”

Harry clears his throat. “Can’t do,” he says. “I got rid of all your booze. And things.”

Louis gapes. “You couldn’t have.”

Harry shrugs. “I still remember all your old hidey-holes. Under the mattress. Behind the toilet. Sorry, Lou. It’s all gone.”

Louis sits back down against the sofa, working his jaw, and Harry catches Liam’s eye. He knows they’re thinking the same thing. _I wish Niall were here._

“We can’t do the band without you – with you like this,” Liam quickly amends himself. “C’mon, mate.”

“You have another chance,” Harry says, making his voice as firm and solid as possible. He fancies that he sounds a little like Robin, a little like Bobby. “Don’t throw it away.”

Louis doesn’t respond. He just tips sideways onto the sofa and stares hopelessly up at his ceiling, and it occurs to Harry, not for the first time, that for all their fame and money they’re just as miserable as anyone else. It’s so unfair that maybe it’s fair.

“Do you think he’ll do alright?” Liam asks, glancing at Harry from his station at the sink. He’s got his phone to his ear for pizza for the lot of them, and to tell Sophia he’s staying over at Louis’s tonight.

Harry sighs and rubs his head. Rumour leaps onto his lap and Harry pets his familiar, faithful dog, never farther away than Harry wants him, never leaving him wondering if he’s on his own again. “You remember what Niall used to tell us? About planets?”

Liam screws up his face. “You’ll have to be more specific than that,” he admits.

“About how, like, they orbit around each other ‘cos they’ve found a way to hold on. Like the chords of a song, you repeat ‘em over and over and they’re, like, the backbone.”

“Oh, yeah,” Liam nods, and it seems believable enough, whether he really remembers all along.

“Maybe it takes more than two planets to get it right,” Harry says. “Maybe it takes all of us.”

“Maybe it takes a sun,” Liam says, and then he’s rattling their order off into his phone, Louis’s extra pepperoni supreme and Harry’s double cheese vegetarian and his own Meat Lovers’. “Wish Niall were here,” Liam finally voices, and Harry laughs like he could cry with it.

He stands up, and Rumour comes with him, his big soft eyes on Harry. “Going to take the dog out, be back in a tick,” he says. Harry takes his phone out of his pocket and considers calling Niall right there on the back stoop, with Rumour trotting around Louis’s overgrown garden, daintily smelling the weeds cropping up here and there like molehills. It’s something like 3am in London right now, though, and Harry knows he shouldn’t wake him.

He feels desperately like if he doesn’t contact Niall now, though, that something – that some kind of tenuous, invisible connection between them will be strained. He just wants Niall to know how he feels. _Louis’s in a state,_ he types, and deletes. _Still wishing you were here,_ he finally decides to text, and then, because no one is watching, he presses a quick, silly kiss to his phone screen. Just because the real thing has never seemed so far away.

Harry wakes up to an _always._

The first thing Belle does when her mom drops her and her brother off at Louis’s is to ask who Harry is, then, “Do you want to play Barbies?”

Apparently she and her brother play together all the time, because Barbie has an ongoing ninja war with Freddie’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a little sheep wearing a pink ballet tutu is some kind of god of war or something, Harry doesn’t really understand the rules. He doesn’t really have to, with Louis playing along like he’s made the rules up himself, and Harry pats Fred’s head, goes to warm up the leftover pizza they’ll eat for lunch.

Louis slouches against the doorframe at the end of the day. “Thanks for coming out,” Louis says, squinting against the deep gold and red of a California sunset. Harry will miss that about this place, he thinks, but he’s got to get home.

“You’ll do alright without me?”

Louis nods and shrugs, and then he shrugs again, more expressively. “Can you tell Liam,” Louis starts, then stops himself. “I don’t know. Tell him I’m sorry?”

Part of Harry really wants to tell Louis to tell him that himself. Then he remembers Louis in boot camp asking Harry the same question, _Go make sure I’ve not really hurt his feelings_ , huffed as though he was more annoyed than anything. Harry could always see the worry in his eyes, though.

“You got it,” he says. He whistles softly, and Rumour faithfully trots at his side to the waiting car.

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever been quite so sad to leave LA, nor so happy to get home to New York.

“Can’t believe I missed all that,” Niall laments. His cheeks seem to be swelled like a chipmunk’s with the amount of carrots and hummus he’s crammed in, but maybe that’s just Harry’s computer screen. “He’s okay, though?”

Harry shrugs just like Louis did. “Will be, I think. I think Liam might just move in with him to make sure. What are you doing?”

“Eating,” Niall sighs. “I’ve been at rehearsals all day, and then we have to decide where to put the instruments on stage so the cameramen can see who, like, who’s playing the instruments because that’s a big selling point.” Niall rolls his eyes, his cheeks aglow. “If something really bad had happened,” he starts, and Harry cuts him off swiftly.

“We would’ve called. I promise.”

Niall’s shoulders relax. “I’m really happy to see you again,” he says, his eyes going suddenly defenseless and gooey like they did in fan pictures sometimes. Harry props his face up on the heel of his hand and tries not to let Niall see him screenshot his face like that.

“The real thing arrives in,” Harry checks his watch. “Uh, like twenty hours.”

“Have you even started packing?” Niall asks amusedly.

Harry looks around his messy room. “Well,” he starts. Truth is, not really, no. He never much does, though; he can always wear Niall’s shirts. He’s too excited to see him again to much care how he’ll be dressed, except for how quickly Niall can get it off him. Harry gets to spend almost a week with Niall before they start recording, on an extended hiatus from his producer gig until…until the band goes back on hiatus, maybe. Harry’s heart beats hard just to think of it. “I love you,” he says, because no matter what, it’s true.

Niall grins. “Can’t wait to see you.”

Harry stumbles off of the airplane more asleep than awake. He stops by the loo on his way out of the airport to whizz and wash his face, and a hectic flush is already crawling up his cheeks when he checks the mirror. Something about carrying on a secret affair is so, well, secret and exciting.

The car takes Harry from the airport to Niall’s house. Somehow, London has a way of changing more than either LA or New York when Harry’s been away. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t visit as much, or maybe it’s just that he remembers this city most of all as a place he was young.

Either way, he never expects the amount of construction, or the sheer number of idling cars on the road stuck in rush hour traffic, or the way the air will have the bite of frost in it this early in the season. It’s only late September, but it feels like it might be so much later, like time is hurrying by faster as recording approaches, the tour next, a _tour,_ Christ _._ Harry’s been waking up again in the middle of the night again, unable to sleep for how much energy he has.

Harry drops his bag on the front stoop, his driver pulling away behind him, and presses the bell. Niall opens the door, and Harry only has time to notice that his hair is soft and curling slightly around his face and that he’s wearing a worn-in pair of jeans and his favorite gray jumper before Harry throws himself at him. Harry tucks his cold nose into Niall’s warm throat. He slides his freezing hands up the back of Niall’s shirt, and Niall shivers, holding Harry back tight.

The cold is just a lingering memory in Niall’s foyer, though, his house warm and bright around them, smelling like baking dough and fried eggs and sausage and Niall’s cologne. It’s a good enough combination to eat, and Harry sets his teeth in beneath Niall’s ear, behind his jaw, and starts sucking.

Niall sags into Harry. “Like a vampire, you are,” he says, his breath catching.

“I am a vampire,” Harry says, a little nonsensically. “I feed off getting you off. Ideally with you. I mean, me getting off with you,” Harry stops himself before he winds his way into a spool of absolute nonsense, and Niall laughs, his chest jumping against Harry’s. Harry finally kisses him then, tasting nothing but Niall’s spearmint toothpaste, and his heart aches a little.

“Your bag, Haz,” Niall murmurs. Harry realizes that the door is still open behind him, and it takes a few tries for him to let go of Niall and drag his bag in by his foot. He grabs hold of Niall again soon as he can, and the only thing better than his chest and belly pressed against Harry’s would be if he wasn’t wearing so much clothing. “Upstairs,” Niall suggests.

Harry thinks of it. A nice soft, warm bed with a very nice warm boy, his naked skin against Harry’s between the soft sheets.

But, like, that’s – it wasn’t his bed first, Aisling used to sleep in it. Somehow the thought of sleeping in her bed – of sleeping with Niall in her bed – is unthinkable, like kicking a dog without apologizing or stealing candy from a baby.

“Here’s fine,” Harry says, dragging Niall over to the couch. He pushes Niall over and climbs on after, tasting every inch of Niall’s skin he can reach. Harry pushes the hem of Niall’s jumper up to his chin so that he can duck his head down and trace the hollows of Niall’s ribs with his mouth, his pale pink nipples, the sharp angles of his hipbones. Niall pulls him back up once he’s thrown his jumper off over his head. Anne’s romance novels call kisses like this _searing_ , which Harry always thought was shite before, but Christ, now he gets it.

“Want to blow you,” Niall murmurs, squeezing Harry’s hips like he likes that there’s some softness there. It used to make Harry a little self-conscious, Niall’s broad square palms on his stubborn love handles, but now it just makes him grind down on the top of Niall’s thigh harder. “C’mon, lemme up and I’ll suck you off.”

“Next time,” Harry says, already a little short of breath, with Niall’s hand snaking down the front of his jeans. The only reason for wearing skinny jeans, Harry sometimes thinks, is that it feels _so good_ when his hard-on comes out. Harry pulled Niall’s jeans and pants down so that Niall can fist them both almost too fast in his calloused hand. “How,” Harry starts, trying to make it as good as possible and hold out for as long as he can at the same time, “how’re you going to do it?”

“On my knees,” Niall says immediately. “Hurts, after, on me knee. Want it to hurt after.”

Holding out, Harry realizes, may be much harder than he thought. He shifts his hips, using Niall’s hand as much as Niall is using Harry’s own weight. “Keep going,” he says.

“In my studio,” Niall goes on. “With the recording – uh – the recording gear on.” His hand is a fast, easy glide now, Harry’s hips thrusting shallowly into Niall’s grip. His cheeks are so flushed and there’s even a light sheen of sweat on his hairline, and Harry really fucking loves getting him off.

Harry drags his lips down from Niall’s mouth, over the stubble on his jaw. He kisses the pulse fluttering in his throat, and then he sets his teeth in at the bottom of Niall’s neck. “What do you want me to say?” he asks. It’s hard to talk, now, he’s breathing so hard, and his head is steadily filling with the familiar soft buzzing that means he’s incredibly fucking turned on. 

“More,” Niall answers. “Just – asking for more.”

“Faster?” Harry suggests, pushing his hand up Niall’s jumper so that he can press the pad of his thumb to his nipple. Niall’s back arches clear off the couch, and Harry slides up his body just a little, bearing down on Niall’s hip for a second. Harry has to close his eyes to the look on Niall’s face so that he won’t come right away, come first. He wants Niall to come first. “Deeper?” Harry adds, barely remembering what they’re talking about.

Niall’s nods. His cheeks are so rosy; they feel absolutely scorching under the back of Harry’s hand. “Like you’re – fuck my mouth like you’re fucking me,” Niall gets out. Harry squeezes Niall’s hand around their dicks and Niall shoots off with a low groan, his dark gold eyelashes fluttering shut.

He tugs Harry down by his neck like he means to kiss him, even though he’s too strung out to do any more than breathe in his mouth. Niall tilts his head up to slide their mouths together anyway and Harry comes all over Niall’s chest and belly, Niall soothing him through it.

“The long distance thing,” Niall eventually ventures, when Harry’s cheek is stuck to Niall’s dried sweat like they’ve been hermetically sealed together, “kind of sucks. The reunion shag, however…”

“Really, really glad to see you again,” Harry admits. Niall bends his neck down to kiss Harry and it’s gone close and dear again, like they’re swaddled in a blanket together in front of a roaring fireplace. It’s all good, Harry thinks. The fast and desperate sex and the desultory kisses. A tiny seed of anxiety sprouts in his chest, and he puts his cheek to Niall’s shoulder again, spreading his fingers over his chest, trying to anchor himself to this moment.

Niall drags the throw blanket off the back of the couch and spreads it over them, his fingers smoothing through Harry’s hair so familiar and friendly that Harry couldn’t keep his eyes open if he wanted. “Quick kip,” Niall says, sound mostly asleep already. And, well. It’s not like it’s any hardship.

***

“Are you nervous?” Harry asks, watching Niall toss yet another shirt out of his closet. It lands without a sound on his bed next to a veritable heap of other patterned shirts. Harry’s curls are air-drying in tight springs, tickling against the back of his neck. Harry smells like Niall now, like Irish Springs soap and his favorite fruity-smelling Tresemmé shampoo.

Niall’s ruddy cheeks are still flushed from their shower earlier – or getting off in the shower – or maybe from nerves, Harry can’t quite tell. Maybe a combination of all three. “You look great,” he tells Niall.

Niall laughs, a little nervously. “Thanks, Haz, but I can’t go in just me pants.”

“Sure you can,” Harry says, tucking two fingers under the elastic waistband of Niall’s boxers and pulling back just enough that it snaps back to his flushed skin. “Like Steven Tyler.”

Niall just snorts, and then he grabs a pair of jeans from a neat stack on a set of shelves. He jumps around a little to get them hitched up at his hips, and then he zips and buttons. Harry tries not to look disappointed.

Niall’s closet doesn’t have the gaping holes in it Harry would have been expecting, if he’d thought of it. ‘Course, Aisling moved out ages ago, but still. Part of Harry wondered if those wounds were still fresh and raw, if Niall would have already started moving in on her empty space, filling it with pieces of himself. The closet doesn’t even look like she’d ever been there.

The whole house, really, doesn’t show any sign that Aisling ever lived with Niall. Niall’s not much for interior decorators, so his house looks very much like he designed it himself. Neat, functional without being cold. It’s hard to remember what it looked like before, when Niall had to push aside some of that utility to make room for his wife, but of course she’ll always have lived here. Harry still can’t make himself look at their bed. It’s like he’s profited off her loss. Which maybe he has, honestly.

The old familiar urge rises up in Harry to ring his mum and see what she has to say. He can’t quite bring himself to admit that Niall’s letting him kiss him again, that Niall made room for Harry’s shit in his antique bureau with the brass handles and bought his stupid organic espresso beans.

Just. It’s better to leave it like this, Harry thinks, watching Niall put on a vintage band t-shirt. He adds a flannel on next and leaves it unbuttoned. As far as everybody else is concerned, nothing has changed between them. Which makes it so much easier to go back to that, Harry thinks, when Niall gets sick of Harry leaving his dirty laundry on the floor of his closet and his stray hairs that clog up the shower drain.

Niall turns to Harry with a smile. “Ready?”

Harry smiles back. “Always,” he says.

Niall drives himself to the venue, which is an abandoned warehouse on the pier. Or, at least, it used to be. Now it’s another one of the Moonlights’ resuscitated venues, and sometimes the fact that they played here is enough to keep the venue open for a while. A bunch of music legends making legends of their own, Harry supposes, and then he ducks his head. If Niall heard him thinking that, he’d absolutely dead leg him.

“Who’s all playing?” Harry asks belatedly.

“Everybody,” Niall answers. Harry assumes he’s making an overstatement until they arrive at the venue and walk into the dressing rooms, and then it’s…everybody. Harry’s been around a lot of famous people at one time before, of course, but not quite so many musicians at one time. They’re all goddamn loud, for one, and there’s at least half a dozen guitars going at the same time, as well what sounds like an accordion, a set of bagpipes, and maybe a sliotar.

Harry’s smiling before he even shakes hands with Steve from Kodaline. “Long time no see,” he says, and hugs him. Even if Harry hadn’t known anyone, he’s quite sure that he would’ve been welcomed with a beer in each hand just because he’s there, and because Niall brought him.

It’s hard not to feel giddy when everybody seems to be in such high spirits, when the pressure, Harry realizes, is actually quite low; it’s not that nobody wants to do a good job, it’s that they must feel so secure that they will. Like the time One Direction performed with Ronnie Wood at the X-Factor, and all Harry had wanted to do was sing as close to Ronnie as possible. Christ, what a day.

And quietly at the center of it all, Niall, who clips a mic pack to the back of his jeans and drops a guitar strap over his head. Easy as that, he’s ready for the show. “Bring it in, everyone!” he calls, so each of the performers – there must be at least twenty Irish singers and musicians – huddles up. Harry’s not planning on performing, himself, but he squeezes his way in between Sinead and Adam when Niall gestures for him to join. “Let’s have fun!”

As inspiring speeches go, it’s not very long, but it pretty well sums up what everybody wants from the show. Harry watches from the wings while musicians rotate in and out for different songs, the Moonlights’ set list like something from the gods of rock and roll. Proud, Harry thinks, doesn’t quite cover it.

It’s only when all of them file onto the stage and lock arms for an audience sing-along of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” that Harry realizes that maybe it’s Niall, in his quiet way, saying goodbye to the Moonlights for now. One last show, one recorded concert to hold onto.

“We have to make that a part of our shows,” Harry tells Niall, when Niall finally pulls away from Harry’s crushing hug. “I want that.”

Niall just laughs, his face flushed and sweaty from two and a half hours of performing. He’s taken off his flannel shirt and his t-shirt is thin, damp with sweat. He smells like a man, and it’d be hot if Harry wasn’t so pumped up on post-concert high. “What d’you think I’ve been practicing for?” Niall asks.

Liam rings the next day, while Niall’s stood over the hob frying eggs and sausage and Harry’s playing with his Kodak, trying to fit Niall’s pert bum and the ruffled top of his head into the same frame. “What?” Harry asks, putting him on speaker.

“Could you try and sound a little happier to hear from me?” Liam whines.

“Liam Payne, my dearest love, light of my life, fire of my loins –”

“Oi, fuck off,” Liam laughs fondly.

Niall says, “Hey, Payno,” and Liam’s voice brightens considerably.

“Niall’s there? You’re with Niall, Harry?”

“Yeah, he had that last Moonlights show,” Harry reminds him, digging his toes into Niall’s ribs when Niall makes the mistake of passing too close to him. Niall pretends like he’s going to stab Harry’s foot with a fork, so Harry tucks his knee up under his chin. “Clearly you don’t remember.”

“I’ve been working!” Liam defends himself quickly. “While you two have been faffing about doing gigs for fun, I’ve been finding us a producer.”

Harry accidentally leans forward, he gets so excited. “Did you find one?”

Pleased, Liam says, “Yes.”

“Well, tell us who it is, then,” Niall says, the muscles in his bare back flexing when he jostles the pan full of sizzling sausages.

Liam clears his throat. “I’ve got Daniel Lanois signed on to work with us.”

Harry almost drops the phone. “You’re not serious?”

“We’re not nearly good enough,” Niall immediately says. Then, “Really?”

“Yes, lads,” Liam laughs. “So get ready to start recording. Niall, how’s the studio looking?”

“Rented out for the next couple of months,” Niall says quickly. “Lucky we already worked up so much material, I couldn’t get any more time than that.”

Harry watches Niall’s chest expand and contract with every breath. He wants so hard to hold onto every moment, onto this unmomentous day in Niall’s kitchen with Liam on the phone, his voice like caramel, full of warmth.

“I can’t wait, lads,” Liam says brightly. “It’s going to be great.”

“How’s Louis?” Harry asks before he can stop himself. He starts pulling on his bottom lip.

Hesitantly, Liam says, “Good, I think. We’ll know when we get on the road, y’know? Everything is so different then.”

It’s more like real life, is what it is, Harry thinks. Life on the road, versus what they do day-to-day. It’s like their brains are wired backwards to think that way, maybe because they were such young lads when they started traveling the world, but tour buses and single nights in hotels, that’s where Harry feels most at peace. The rest of it just feels like biding time. Maybe it only feels that way because they’re so close to gigging again.

Harry hits the red button and tosses his phone aside. “Celebratory shag?” he suggests to Niall.

“Eat first?” Niall asks.

“Well, alright,” Harry shrugs. He slides off the counter and fits himself along Niall’s spine, feeling his pale soft skin brush against his own. Harry hooks his chin over Niall’s shoulder and breathes him in.

Niall leans back against him. “We’re good, right?” he asks.

Harry’s known Niall ten years now, or thereabouts, so he knows that Niall’s really asking, _Is there anything you need to say?_ Harry thinks about it. “When you found me on the couch this morning, it wasn’t that the mattress was uncomfortable.”

“You don’t like the bed,” Niall surmises. “I figured.”

“Just…” Harry doesn’t know how to say that it makes him feel a little too interchangeable, is the thing – not without being needlessly cruel, when that’s the last thing he wants to be. “Yeah,” he finally murmurs.

Niall’s quiet for a moment. Then, “I reckon that’s alright. I can – it’d be good to have one of them posh space ones, for your back, if you – if you were planning to spend some time here.”

Harry goes totally, utterly still. “S’pose so,” he swallows. “Okay.” 

“If you want,” Niall tacks on softly, so Harry buries his face in the muscle at the top of Niall’s shoulder, breathes him in.

“I want,” he admits, and even though Niall hardly moves, it’s like Harry can feel him brighten. It’s worth it, Harry thinks, as much as it’ll hurt when it’s over. So worth it.

As much as Harry would like to spend the whole week in Niall’s house (more specifically his guest bed or acting out Niall’s daydream about sucking Harry off in his studio), members of the LIC drop by every other night for dinner and to chat shit. They usually come with a couple of instruments in hand – a guitar, a tambourine, once memorably even a flute – and Harry cracks open his journal after they leave while Niall puts the house to rights, wanting to capture it.

He has reams of photographs now of Laura laughing so hard beer shot out of her nose, Niall standing on the back of his couch reenacting that time Harry broke his foot, Bressie and Eoghan with their arms around each other while they cry tears over Derby County’s standings.

“Those are great,” Niall says, watching Harry flip through them. Harry’s sat on Niall’s piano bench, idly touching the keys. It’s just an electronic keyboard, not a proper piano, but it sounds alright for writing. Sometimes Harry puts one of them electric filters over the top to make it sound like an alien thing, but not today. “Why aren’t there any pictures of us together?” Niall asks reasonably.

There’s nothing accusatory in his tone, just a mild, gentle interest like he always takes with Harry. It’s hard not to feel the love in his voice when he sounds like that. “Pictures are for holding onto things,” Harry answers then, before he can stop himself.

Niall looks thoughtful for a moment, and then he shrugs, so Harry runs a hand through Niall’s soft hair and pulls him down beside him. Niall straddles the bench, and Harry tips his head onto Niall’s shoulder.

“Love you,” Niall says, like maybe he’s picking up on more than Harry gave him credit for. Or maybe he’s just saying it because he can, and it’s as casual as it sounds. Harry kisses the top of his shoulder. “Love you,” he answers, and turns his head to watch Niall flip through the sheaf of photographs. He makes soft sounds of approval for the pictures he especially likes, and Harry makes mental notes of each, so that he can give them to Niall later. Maybe in a photobook, or maybe in some sort of collage. Niall would like that.

Niall scratches his hand through Harry’s hair, and then he squeezes the back of his neck, and Harry loves him.

They take a ferry from Holyhead to Dublin. The gray-green water sloshes up the side of the boat, Harry leaning over the railing to get a good shot, and Niall darts in and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth when he beams at the perfect shot. Harry pulls his hat down lower, curls Niall into the circle of his arm, kisses him back hard.

Niall drives them from Dublin to the recording location, which Harry has only ever seen pictures of. They stop on the way for snacks at a convenience store, and a second time so that Harry can use the loo. Niall pulls his Range Rover up the drive to the most ridiculously lavish building Harry’s ever seen short of Versailles on a family holiday when he was eleven. The sun is just beginning to sink over the tops of the hills in the distance, so the mansion is backlit. It looks like something from legend, and Harry just laughs.

“Welcome,” Niall says, making his accent as Irish as it can possibly be, “to Belvedere House.”

“This is a castle,” Harry says. He slings his bag over his shoulder and pushes his sunnies up into his hair to get a better look. “This is a _castle._ ”

“Well,” Niall shrugs. “I figured it’d be big enough for recording. And listen, it’s got the best acoustics.”

Harry takes a deep breath, smelling nothing but grass and soft sod, hard and cold in the oncoming winter but sure to be soft in the spring. The air has that faint metallic taste of iron that snow has, so that Harry knows it’ll be a hard, cold one. A flock of bird wings overhead, their soft crows almost entirely lost on the wind, and it feels a little like a moment set out of time.

Louis and Liam are in the chapel, bickering over the best way to stack up the pews to make room for their gear. “When are the session musicians arriving?” Harry asks. “And Daniel?”

Liam bounces across the room to wrap Harry and Niall into a hug, their heads knocking together like coconuts. “Tomorrow,” he says brightly.

“Sandy’s not coming back, had to find someone new,” Niall laments. “The rest of the boys are coming back, though.”

It’s infectious, the way the smile grows between the four of them. Liam still has either arm on Harry’s and Niall’s shoulders, and it’s easy to make room between them for Louis. He smells like clean laundry, and his face is a little less gaunt than the last time Harry saw him. Harry tilts his head and Louis nods, and Harry can see the eighteen-year-old boy in him, for the first time in a long time. The guy who looks like he has everything to prove.

“This is going to be so great,” Niall enthuses, and Harry has to agree.

“You boys are so cute,” a feminine voice says. For a split second, Harry thinks it’s Sophia, and he pulls away from the hug to wrap his arms around her. It’s not Sophia, though. It’s Perrie. Zayn’s Perrie, the Perrie from Little Mix. Little Mix, who’s signed to…signed to Louis’s label. Harry makes the connection and snaps his head around, and Louis shrugs, a little guiltily.

Mostly stunned, Harry and Niall and Liam watch Perrie walk around their little huddle and loop her arm through Louis’s. They look weird, Harry thinks. Then, grudgingly, they look cute. She was engaged to _Zayn_ , though.

Harry’s still trying to figure out how to react when Liam pushes Louis over. Louis stumbles back and falls, ass over teakettle, onto a pew. His head pops up a moment later. “What the hell was that!”

“I don’t know,” Liam says, breathing hard. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did!” Louis crows.

Liam thinks. “I thought you were joking!”

“Fuck off!” Louis says, tangled in a rolled-up rug that had been leaned against the dusty pew.

Niall reaches out and squeezes Perrie’s hand. She turns and makes a ridiculous face up at Niall, and she’s just as beautiful as she ever was. “It’s good to see you again,” he says, sounding like he means it.

“It’s weird as hell, though,” Harry murmurs to Niall, later, when Louis and Liam have gone off for a smoke break and Harry and Niall are sat on the floor in the middle of the old chapel with boxes of Chinese takeaway between them. “Right?”

“I don’t know,” Niall says slowly. “It’s a bit like, I dunno, like some little bit of Zayn is here.”

“You want him here?” Harry asks. Niall still doesn’t talk about him. Had iced him out, really, quite like the way he’s iced out Aisling. Not like he’s angry or upset, more like he’s chosen not to care anymore. Harry clears his throat, remembering Niall saying, _I told her that it was all pretend,_ and he shakes his head. That’s not happening yet, that happened a long time ago.

Slowly, Niall says, “No.” Then, “Kind of feel like he is, a bit, though, you know? Just,” he huffs out a laugh. He reaches over and touches the knobby bone of Harry’s ankle, where the black x is still there. It’s a little faded now, a bit tatty-looking. Harry likes it more than ever.

“S’pose I should’ve had that one done,” Niall muses.

Harry thinks of the Polaroid of Niall he included in his book of photographs, the one where he’s connected the freckles of Niall’s back with a marker. He thinks about planets holding steady in orbit, and Harry shakes his head. Niall doesn’t need any tattoo.

“‘S good, is all, I think,” Niall adds softly. “Something he loved, and us, together again.”

Harry remembers that phone call with Zayn again. _We’re always going to love him._ When Niall ambles away for a stolen fag from one of the other boys, Harry dials up Lou.

“Love,” she breathes. “How is my favorite popstar?”

“Doing popstar things,” Harry answers loftily. “Are you packing to come back on tour with us?”

Lou clucks her tongue. “Ooh, I don’t know, love,” she says, in her broad flat accent. “Lux is _ten_ now. Can you believe? _Ten._ She and all her little friends come down from the grocery store with that terrible cheap makeup on that smells like bubblegum. I just don’t know that the road is the right place for her.”

Harry’s very quiet, thinking of Louis and his babies. _Lux is perfect_ , he’d said. It still feels true. “Well,” he clears his throat. “I – do you still keep in touch with Caroline?”

“No,” she answers, her voice instantly stubborn and put-out.

“I mean, not that she knows of, necessarily,” Harry answers patiently.

“Oh, then, of course,” Lou sniffs. “Professional pride, and all that, of course I do. She _still_ thinks Zayn was her very own success when I was the one who suggested that John Travolta hair at the awards, and do you know what? People were talking about that one for ages!”

Patiently, Harry says, “Lou.”

“What?” she asks, breathing a little hard.

“Can you get Zayn’s number for me?”

Lou makes a hacking sound into the receiver. “What do you want to have to do with him?”

Harry pulls his legs up and tips his head back against the bench part of the pew behind him. It’s stiff and hard, but he can look up at the peaked ceiling of this chapel and almost, just about, see himself. “It’s not for me,” he says.

“Ugh,” Lou says again. Then, “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Love you lots,” Harry cuts in quickly, before she can hang up on him to ring Caroline. Knowing Lou, she’s probably all sorts of psyched to ring Caroline up and taunt her with all of her own success. She still loves her too, in her own way. “Always will.”

“You too, babe,” Lou answers, unmistakably fond. Then she hangs up.

“Who was that?” Liam asks, leading the rest of the lads back in.

Harry picks up the last white box of lo mein. “Your mother,” Harry answers smartly. “She says I’m her favorite.”

“You’re an asshat,” Liam says, ruffling Harry’s curls. Harry whacks him in the leg with a chopstick, and Liam knees him in the shoulder.

“Lads,” Louis intones dryly, his hands on his hips. He sounds very much like a dad. “Time for bed. We want to be fresh for tomorrow. It’s going to be ace.”

Tomorrow is…not ace, actually. For some reason, all the incredible stuff they’d worked up in the South of France falls apart when the session musicians come in and start building music to the boys’ tentative melodies. Maybe it’s because it’s just not John and Julian, who seemed to be members of One Direction themselves.

“I think,” Daniel finally volunteers, a Styrofoam cup of coffee clutched in one hand, his glasses pinched between the fingers of his other, “we should do this backwards. Start with the vocals, okay?”

Harry steps up to the microphone first, and the sound engineer nods that they’re recording, so Harry listens to himself sing one of their new songs a cappella.

“Now,” Dan asks, “what instruments were you imagining?”

The recording process gets a lot easier, after that.

“This is mad,” Niall leans over to whisper to Harry on only their third day, when Harry’s actually playing the melody to one of their songs himself on the piano.

Harry can feel his dimples crease in reply, deep as scars. “It’s amazing, innit?”

“Wish I could kiss you,” Niall says quietly, his eyes going dark and almost hungry, so Harry looks away fast, his whole body flaring.

“Come to mine tonight,” Harry murmurs, deliberately and subtly turning his microphone away from his mouth. “After the others have gone to sleep.”

Niall groans. It sounds like an impossible task; it very nearly is one, with Liam and Louis suddenly, entirely back in sync, and reworking their songs to fit their weird wonder twin vision. It wouldn’t be a problem except that they’re all stuck with adjoining rooms, Louis and Niall, Liam and Harry. Harry’s had to tell Liam he’s closing the door for a wank, thank you very much, and Liam had called from his room, “Why don’t you do it in the shower like a normal lad?”

Harry pats his hip, Niall twitching like Harry might go for his dick or his bum while they’re stood here in front of half a dozen musicians and their own band mates. To be fair, he’s done it before. “It’ll be worth it,” he promises softly.

Niall texts Harry at 2am, _I’m literally going to die,_ so Harry texts back _:-(._ Niall’s only reply to that is _thot u didn’t use emojis._ Harry decides to wait a few minutes to respond to that git. He calls Lou, instead, who rattles off Zayn’s number quick quick and then hangs up to help Lux get ready for her first school dance.

“Hello?” Zayn asks, and Harry’s heart stops. It must think it's on fire, because his heart stops, drops, and rolls all around his chest.

Harry swallows. “Hey. Yeah.”

“Harry,” Zayn sucks in a breath. Harry’s phone buzzes with a new text so he looks down at it. Niall’s sent _sorry_ and a slew of apologetic emojis and smiley faces, which Harry knows is really his subtle way of poking fun, still. Harry numbly puts his phone back to his ear. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“Might not have picked up,” Harry guesses, plucking at a loose thread on the dark gray bedspread. This whole hotel room is shades of gray, which wouldn’t bother Harry so much except for those dumb books. Niall steadfastly refuses to let Harry handcuff him to anything.

Zayn stays quiet. His silence was almost the most powerful weapon, more cutting than anything Louis could say or Liam could mutter. More devastating than Harry’s occasional tantrums. Harry closes his eyes and listens to Zayn breathe.

He used to fall asleep to Zayn’s breath all the time. They shared hotel rooms in the early days, and Zayn would always knock right out no problem unless they were going to stay up all night for earnest heart-to-hearts that Harry can’t even remember anymore.

“Saw a shirt,” Zayn finally ventures. “The other day, at the Gucci show. I almost bought it for you.”

“Was it the one with the peacock on?” Harry guesses. The feathers were real, and the bird’s blue body was made up of rhinestones. It was completely ostentatious. Harry loved it.

“Yeah,” Zayn lets out a surprised laugh. “Yeah, it was.”

Harry nods like Zayn can see him, like he can still please Zayn in some way by communicating the way Zayn did. Without words. Harry starts pulling at his bottom lip. Zayn’s end of the phone sounds quiet, restful. He wonders how that’s possible with Zayn’s new baby. Maybe he’s not at home. Maybe he’s sat in his car with a gallon of milk in a plastic sack in the passenger seat beside him, taking a five-minute break before he heads home to a colicky baby. It’s a nice thing to imagine. “We’re doing it again,” Harry finally ventures.

“Is it what you dreamed it’d be?” Zayn asks, his voice so soft, like a lullaby.

Harry opens his eyes, smiles. His phone buzzes with another text but he doesn’t check it yet, doesn’t want this moment to be interrupted. “Yeah,” Harry admits. That says enough. That says it all, maybe, Harry realizes. He’s not sure what else he has to say to Zayn except, “The boys…”

Niall sees Perrie as a common denominator, but for Harry, the common denominator is always going to be his boys. Niall, Liam and Louis and the weird family they used to be, before they grew old enough for real families of their own.

Zayn makes a joke. “Are you just trying to clean up on the reunion album angle?”

“Obviously,” Harry huffs. “Hey, no. I’m just…”

“I know,” Zayn says softly. “I’ve known that since you had us all over at your bungalow.”

“Well, we’re at this – the Belvedere Castle,” Harry furrows his brow to make sure he says it just the way it’s spelled, “if ever – if you ever…”

Zayn says, “Good lad. Thanks.”

“Right. Later, Zaynie.”

“Zaynie,” Zayn repeats softly, his phone ringing off.

Harry checks his phone. Niall’s sent eight unread texts, the first genuinely apologetic and the rest the knife, gun, and bomb emojis with Louis’s and Liam’s names interspersed with a few choice swear words. There’s a rapid-fire knocking on Harry’s door, so he throws his legs over the side of his bed and goes to let Niall in.

He’s just letting himself relax, smiling, when he spots Louis opening his door across the hall. “Oh,” Louis says, rocking back on his heels. “I was just going to Liam’s, we were going to watch Guardians of the Galaxy II on his TV.” He hesitates, then, “You lads want to come?”

“We’re fine, thanks,” Harry says, his voice absurdly high.

Louis narrows his eyes.

“Yeah, I was just – uh – just coming to tell Harry, er, I might…”

“Come to the gym with me and Liam tomorrow,” Harry interrupts smoothly. Almost smoothly. It’s almost kind of believable, anyway.

Niall nods quickly. “Yeah, getting fit.”

“Huh,” Louis says, one eyebrow quirked. Niall hesitates for a second, then realizes he should go back to his, because he turns on his heel and slips back into his room without so much as a desperate glance over his shoulder.

“Can you let me into Liam’s?” Louis asks. “Guess he must be in the shower.”

So Harry lets Louis into his, and then he pushes the adjoining door open. Liam’s coming out of the loo just as Louis steps past Harry, and when Liam spots Harry, he beams. “Are you going to watch with us?”

“Uh,” Harry says, thinking of Niall alone in his room, a whole hallway between him and the other two lads. They could almost be as loud as they wanted.

“It’s either that or faff about your room with your journal,” Louis points out. “C’mon lad.”

And, well, Harry can’t say no.

His phone buzzes twice in rapid succession. _where r u._ Then, _i hate u, enjoy the movie while i get off_ WITHOUT YOU

Harry sends back three crying face emojis, and then he locks his phone and tucks it into his pocket.

The movie’s actually pretty good, all things considered.

“Here’s an idea,” Niall says the next day. They’re sat all around the chapel on lunch break, ten mouths stuffed with Nando’s from just up the lane. Niall has peri peri sauce on his chin, and Harry takes a furtive glance around before he thumbs Niall’s face clean. He licks his thumb, and Niall’s pupils actually dilate. “How about we rent an extra hotel room?”

“What? What for?”

“To hide the body, what do you think?” Niall asks, rolling his eyes.

Harry thinks about it. “That’s actually brilliant. Get us the penthouse suite, eh? The one with the Jacuzzi. Wait, never mind. I’ll take care of it.”

Niall looks like he wants to ask Harry just what he means by that, but a sound engineer strolls by with a sheaf of papers in his hand and two microphones in the other, so Harry shuts up quick just in case they happen to be recording.

Maybe the weirdest thing about recording is it’s the first time they’ve done it together since they were on the X-Factor. Well, even then, sort of; they all went to the studio on the same day to record “Forever Young,” that very first ever single, but they’d recorded their bits separately. Harry remembers what a shock it was to hear how much of Liam’s voice there was, and how little of anyone else’s. He remembers wondering if that would be a problem down the line.

Sometimes Harry wonders if Zayn would’ve been so keen to leave if any of his songs made it on a record, and then he knows he wouldn’t have been, so he doesn’t ask. He thinks about it, though. Fighting Louis and Liam harder, fighting the label harder on that final track list. He can remember Zayn getting his early copy of the record and checking the track list on the back, dropping it and walking out with a fag already stuck between his lips and dialing Perrie on his phone.  

She’s the one who says something, actually. Harry’s just balling up his trash and taking it over to the big bin by the chapel door when he hears her raise her voice. “For Christ’s sakes, Louis! You’re such an asshole!”

“What?” he asks. Louis has his hands on his hips, his face set like an otter’s or something else sleek and clever, and not nearly as fierce-looking as it is, but there’s absolutely nothing fierce about his tone. Harry stops to watch.

“Your songs are good,” Perrie allows, “but so are theirs!” She points at Harry, then at Niall. “You may own the label but you don’t own them, and you don’t own this band,” she winds down. “You don’t any band at all, actually.”

She turns on her heel and strides out, her hair flowing, long and silky, behind her.

Harry exchanges a nervous look with Niall.

Liam says, “Well, she certainly – eh.” He stops.

Louis looks round. “What?” he demands. “Fuck off, the lot of you. Fuck. Fine. Fuck. Fucking, we always vote, don’t we?”

“I mean…” Harry trails off, his voice low. Yeah, but, like.

Niall finally says, “There was a reason Haz said we should vote about bringing the band back with our eyes closed, Lou. You and Li can be a little…”

“And you never said anything before?” Louis demands. The chapel, with its tall stained glass windows showing the Wise Men following Mary to Bethlehem and baby Jesus in the manger, grows very quiet. Harry holds his breath.

“Zayn did,” Niall says quietly.

Louis looks like he’s been struck between the eyes, like he’s a ringing bell. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, swallows, gestures toward the door Perrie just left through, and follows after her.

“They’ll be great together,” Liam says placatingly to the room at large. He forces a smile on his face. “Just a little domestic tiff, they’ll be right back,” he tells Dan and the sound engineers. It’s so in-character Harry could cry.

There comes a soft knock on the open double doors. “I take it now’s not a good time?” Zayn asks, poking his head in.

***

“I saw you in a bookstore once,” Zayn tells Harry. Harry’s making tea in the tiny kitchenette behind the altar inside the chapel. It’s probably where the priest warmed the water for the babies who were being christened, which is a little scary to think about. That they’re so close to something so, like, foundational.

Harry looks at Zayn in surprise. Niall and Liam scuttled off the moment they saw Zayn, so Harry awkwardly invited him for tea which…he really should’ve checked that there were tea bags before he made that offer. Also, he should probably figure out where the rest of the lads went.

Harry screws up his brow in concentration, trying to remember if he’d seen Zayn in a bookstore. Zayn gently nudges Harry aside and finds the box of Irish breakfast tea in the back of the cupboard, behind an ancient can of sardines and three crucifixes.

“It was in New York,” Zayn supplies quietly. “When I was living there.”

“Oh,” Harry realizes. “Oh. I didn’t know…I didn’t see you.”

Zayn shrugs. “I didn’t want you to.” His broad Bradford accent is back in full force; he sounds like his mum, Harry wants to say. He leans in close, hoping Zayn won’t notice, and smells Zayn’s old familiar fragrance: warm bread and cigarette smoke and samosas, savory and warm. “Are you smelling me?”

Harry hums. “You smell the same,” he says, and then feels a little silly for saying it.

“You’re such a dork,” Zayn says fondly, so Harry makes a face at him and goes to tend to the kettle on the hob. “I think you had just done that book of pictures, or maybe you were just about to. You and Lux were there.”

Harry does remember that day, he realizes. He’d taken her to the bookstore while her mum got her hair done just two doors down. He bought her the first Harry Potter book and read the first four chapters to her that night. They’d gone through the rest of the series with Harry reading to her over the phone, Lou’s soft hoarse voice on the phone at the end of the day murmuring that her baby was asleep, thanks, Haz. Harry was just happy he still had a place in her life even though her dad was proper back in the picture. Maybe that’s how Louis feels about his own kids. He’d be happy just to have a place, a space of his own. A way to relate to them.

“There was a Brandon Flowers song playing over the speakers,” Harry says slowly.

“‘Never Get You Right,’” Zayn nods along, his hazel eyes sparkling.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” Harry asks.

Zayn shrugs. “I didn’t know what to say,” he says. “Didn’t seem like the right time.”

Harry leans his hip against the counter and looks at Zayn. He’s still thin enough that Harry can see the fragile, birdlike shape of his sternum and ribs when he breathes, his cheeks high and angular.

Harry in the bookshop, their lives intersecting like they were strangers, like some kind of fate; that’s probably how Zayn wanted to remember him, he thinks. Instead of that disastrous first meeting of Louis and Zayn after Zayn left. His face has healed up beautifully, even if there’s the slightest bump in his otherwise perfect nose. Harry’s a little meanly glad that it’s there.

“You called me,” Zayn reminds Harry. He knuckles at his beard, his eyes on his hand on the counter. There’s just a simple gold wedding ring where Harry remembers Zayn wearing, at turns, a silver skull ring, or the gold one with the letter on. The wedding ring suits him better than either of the others had.

“I don’t even know why I called,” Harry admits, biting his lip. He considers asking Zayn not to tell the others that Harry called him, and then he reckons that if it wasn’t Perrie, it’d have to be him, so he shuts up. “Why’d you come?”

Zayn shrugs, nervous and birdlike. It reminds Harry forcefully of Niall.

“Well,” Harry sighs. “Might as well find the boys. I’m sure they’ll...” Harry trails off. He’s not sure what they’ll have done, to be honest.

Niall, Perrie, Louis, and Liam are alone in the chapel when Harry and Zayn leave the kitchen with a peace offering of tea and some biscuits Zayn found in the back of the pantry. Always bring snacks to a showdown, that’s one of Harry’s rules. Or to a breakup. Also, weddings and birthday parties.

“Zed, Zed, Zed,” the others start chanting the moment they see Zayn. Zayn rocks on his heels, frozen. Harry remembers the video footage from Zayn’s knockout run of club shows in the UK before he took off on a killer club tour on four continents. Before he got married and settled down and gave it all up.

Only Zayn would understand that it’s not an attack, it’s a peace offering. He laughs, ducking his head, and ambles over to the others at Harry’s side.

“We brought tea,” Harry offers, and Zayn tosses his paper bag of biscuits to Liam.

“You look old,” Louis observes with a sidelong glance.

“I look like a da, so thanks,” Zayn laughs. He eyes Perrie at his side, says nothing. “Liam,” he starts, sounding uncertain, and he still pronounces it hard, _Leeyum._ Liam has one eye on Louis, Harry can tell; he waits for Louis’s short nod before he leaps forward and crushes Zayn into his chest.

Niall puts his hand on Harry’s side, so Harry shuffles up beside him. “This was you, wasn’t it?” Niall murmurs.

Harry worries over his lip. “Are you happy?”

Niall rolls his eyes a bit, pushes Harry away with a hand on his head. Harry leans back in and Niall bumps their shoulders together familiarly. “Meddler, you are.”

“We’re too old,” Harry whispers. Just, too old.

“Sometimes a bitch just can’t stick it out,” Louis cuts over their murmured conversation, his eyes bright and sharp and hard, like a mirror.

Zayn looks right back at him. “I thought I needed to get away,” he says softly, so quiet it’s like a whisper. It feels a little like a prayer, with this church so still and quiet, only Dan and the sound techs in the hall outside talking footie and their local teams. “That I didn’t have myself in the band, like.”

Harry makes a tiny little sound. Zayn’s words feel so loud in his head, because he’s never heard it like that before, but – but _duh_ , that’s what the band is for, and isn’t he better for it?

 _Oh_ , Harry thinks. He is. Maybe Zayn wasn’t. It’s kind of hard to blame him for something like that.

Niall puts his arm around Harry’s waist, and part of Harry wants to warn him off; that’s not quite being subtle, Niall. Then Niall settles his hand on the soft flesh of Harry’s hip and squeezes, just a little, and Harry relaxes into his side. To hell with what anyone else thinks.

“Are we done recording for the day, boys?” Dan knocks on the door to ask. “Because if so, I’d love to go back to the hotel and have a nap.”

“Yeah,” Niall answers. He talks to Zayn for the first time. “Are you staying?”

“Just till dinner,” Zayn answers. His eyes soften on Niall like he’s looking at a dog, or a cat, or a baby. Niall keeps his face averted.

Liam invites Zayn out for a smoke break, so Louis tags along, and of course Perrie goes with him. Harry and Niall go too, mostly because Niall doesn't think it's right for them to have a quick make-out session in a church.

Somehow their mature, grown-up reunion devolves into a three-on-three footie throwdown. “Winner takes all,” Louis declares, ripping his shirt off.

“Put your shirt back on,” Perrie says, taking her place beside Harry. “I’ll take Styles and Liam.”

“Harry has no sense of balance,” Niall points out. Harry makes an affronted face.

“I work out!” Harry protests. Niall sticks his tongue out at Harry, and Harry just grins.

Even though Niall and Zayn exercise about as far as reaching for the remote on the arm of the couch, and Louis’s a recovering alcoholic with a liver like a beached whale, they somehow manage to scrape up enough telepathy to smash through Harry’s “outfield defense.”

“For the love of God!” Niall bursts, his chest heaving. Sweat drips down his temples like a droplet of water down the side of a glass of ice cold water on a hot summer’s day, and Christ, Harry’s thirsty. He also really wants to lick Niall. “That’s not even what it’s called!”

Zayn jogs leisurely by, like he’s floating on a cloud. “Heart eyes,” he warns Harry, jabbing him in the gut with his pointy fucking fingers.

“We’re grown men!” Harry cries. Liam trucks past him and Harry can’t help himself, has to stick his foot out and try to trip him.

Louis’s team wins with a landslide 3-2 – Perrie pulled through with their team’s only two goals, in the end, because Harry kept targeting his own teammate – and so they let the game end when Harry can hear Niall’s stomach rumbling across the field and even Zayn starts sniffing the air, asking if anyone else smells a barbecue.

So they pile into Liam’s ridiculous dad suburban and travel fifteen minutes up the road to Mullingar, where the barkeeper at the pub spots Niall within fifteen seconds and has two rounds of beers out to them in a flat minute.

Niall raises a glass to himself. “It’s good to be home,” he sighs. Harry struggles between rolling his eyes and licking the foam mustache off his upper lip.

Harry spills his basket of chips into his lap, and when he looks up, Niall’s stepped off to the loo. Harry just catches sight of Zayn pushing back his chair and following him, and he wonders whether he ought to intervene. Meddle, he uses Niall’s word. He decides to let them be, focusing instead of putting his food back into the basket and mixing the right ratio of ketchup to mayonnaise together for the perfect dipping sauce.

He spots Niall and Zayn sneaking out through the front door. Niall makes a complicated series of hand gestures that Harry assumes amount to, “We’re sneaking out,” but that may well be “I’m about to kick his ass in the alley.” Harry points to himself. _Shall I come?_ Niall shakes his head, and then, without even checking if anyone is looking, points to his chest. To his heart.

Harry has to hide his smile in his collar.

The rest of them trickle home slowly. Louis and Perrie go first, Perrie’s firm hand on Harry’s shoulder a bracing force on her way out. Liam gives Harry a ride back to the hotel. Harry rolls down his window and sticks his arm out to feel the cold wind rush past his skin, flutter his coat and shirtsleeve and rustle through his hair. The wind dries his sweat and leaves him feeling almost as good as after a long cry, spent and refreshed by it.

“Thanks,” Liam says, twitching the radio dial down a few knobs. Moon Taxi’s “Rooftops” quiets.

“For what?” Harry asks.

Liam glances over his shoulder to check his blind spot and turns the wheel. The streetlights change from red to green and Harry knows this boy, he thinks. All the way down to his bones. “Bringing us all back together,” Liam grins.

“Eh,” Harry shrugs. That was as much Liam as it was him, Liam steadfastly working to find them a recording space, a producer, the songs themselves.

Liam reaches over and shakes Harry a little by his shoulder. “Hey. Thank you,” he repeats.

“ _Spent the night on the rooftops / between the streets and the stars_ ,” Harry starts singing along. Liam joins in on, “ _You know I’m feeling alright about / how this will all work out_ ,” and they drive the rest of the way home singing at the top of their lungs, Liam’s crinkly-faced smile the closest thing Harry’s ever known to a brother of his own.

Harry falls out of bed, sure that his door is being pelted by snowballs. This one time, Louis had his card key, and Harry had to barricade his door with his desk so that Louis wouldn’t shove ice down his pants. Harry shakes his head, perplexed, and gets to his hands and knees. He realizes that someone’s just knocking on his door, and he stumbles to his feet.

Niall cheers. “Harry!” He smiles. He trips over his own feet when he tries to step over the threshold, so Harry rushes in to catch him. Niall’s breath is almost as warm against Harry’s chest as his pink cheeks.

“Aw,” Harry says. “You’re sloshed, love.” He’s already started petting the soft hair on the back of Niall’s head before he realizes that Zayn’s hovering behind Niall.

“Just making sure he got home safe,” Zayn says quickly, his hands raised. Harry wants to laugh. He settles for not letting Niall slip down, instead.

Harry nods. “Alright. Thanks, then.”

Zayn tilts his head, and Harry knows his bright, clever amber eyes have them all puzzled out. He wonders what Niall might’ve said to him. “Careful with him,” Zayn says, which doesn’t make any sense. Niall will be fine. He’s always fine.

“Thanks for coming,” Harry says.

Zayn pushes a hand through his hair, his gold wedding ring glinting dully in the light. “Thanks for having me. One last kickabout with the boys.”

Harry doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nods. Zayn takes a step back, putting his hands in his pockets. Harry doesn’t wait to watch him walk down the hall. He closes the door softly instead, and works on carrying Niall to bed. Niall promptly rolls over onto his stomach and starts snoring, so Harry unties his shoelaces and slides his hiking boots off his feet. Then he goes to fetch a glass of water from the bathroom.

The glass still has the paper lid on, so Harry takes it off and crumples it up, dropping it into the trash can. He wonders idly how many of these paper cup tops he’s thrown away in his life. Harry sneaks into Liam’s room next and finds a bottle of paracetamol neatly stowed away in the cupboard behind the mirror, and then he pads back to his own room, where Niall’s rolled onto his arm.

“Love,” Harry shakes him. “C’mon, bud, if you don’t drink this you’re going to be a miserable sod tomorrow.”

“No more shots,” Niall pushes him away. “‘M at my limit.”

“I – I know,” Harry snorts. “It’s just water.”

Niall lets Harry sit him up, and then he obediently guzzles down half the glass of water and two pills before he promptly lays back down and goes straight to sleep. Harry puts on a pair of joggers for the sake of propriety, and then he slides into bed next to Niall. He’s like a sack of flour in his sleep, so Harry pulls his arm over his own chest and settles in for bed.

“Love you,” Harry tells Niall. Niall just snores lightly on, his mouth slightly open. A candy pink blush is spread over his pale cheeks. Harry smooths back his hair, and then he pulls the string on the lamp beside the bed, and the room goes dark.

***

Harry climbs over Niall to get out of bed in the morning. Niall snoozes right through it, as well as Harry putting his trainers on and a DriFit shirt, his fleece jacket over that. Harry whistles softly and Rumour’s head pops up from the armchair in the corner. “Ready for a jog, boy?” Harry whispers.

The air is as fresh and crisp as a bottle green apple, and the path leading from the hotel’s back garden into the greenbelt behind the hotel and along the manmade river crunches under Harry’s shoes. It’s such an idyllic place, Harry thinks. The iron taste of frost is on the air, but it feels sweeter here, in the town where Niall grew up. The kind of weather that pushes you into friends’ homes and the pubs down the street with all your mates.

Rumour’s breath fans out in a cloud of condensation, and he trots along loyally at Harry’s side. The tags on his collar jingle a little against each other, and Harry speeds up, lets Rumour really stretch his legs out on this jog.

“Good dog?” Harry asks, at the end of the job. Rumour flops over onto his back and kicks all four of his feet up into the air. “Happy dog?” Rumour wiggles in the dirt, his fur probably positively laden with it, and he’s such a _mess_ , it takes so long to give him a proper bath. Harry wrinkles his nose at Rumour. “Happy dog.”

Rumour’s happy enough to trot alongside Harry for the walk back. Harry passes the Tesco that Bobby Horan has been working at since before Niall was a little baby, and he thinks about pausing inside. Bobby’s not at work right now, though, so Harry buys a newspaper from the street vendor with a red beanie and a neat red beard, and then he slips into the hotel without being noticed. He takes the lift up to his room and finds Niall just sitting up, blearily fisting at his eyes.

“Where are we?” he asks, voice croaky.

Harry’s heart swells with fondness. “My room,” he answers. “Zayn brought you home last night.”

Niall groans and slumps back into the pillows. “Did I say anything embarrassin’?”

“You made a very romantic declaration of love,” Harry starts. He lets Rumour loose, and Rumour promptly jumps onto the bed and lays down with his head on Niall’s stomach. Niall starts petting his back in long, slow strokes. “You also confessed that you don’t mind when I leave my socks on the closet floor.”

“That drives me mad,” Niall mumbles.

Harry piles onto the bed with Niall and his dog. “You had a good night, then?”

“Don’t really remember much,” Niall says slowly, his face screwed up.

“Niall,” Harry starts. He squints, like maybe he’s gone selectively color blind, or something. “What did you do to your hair?”

“What?” Niall asks, horror dawning on his face. Harry tries to grab the lock he’s talking about and pull it down. Niall goes cross-eyed looking at the front of his hair, just off center a bit. “What is it?”

It’s a blond streak, is what it is. Harry smooths his hand over Niall’s forehead, and he wishes he could throttle Zayn by his skinny, sentimental neck.

“Does it look good, at least?” Niall asks.

“Zayn knows what he’s doing,” Harry jokes. Niall shrugs and relaxes back into the soft hotel mattress, 'cos he knows it's true. “He saw. Us.”

Niall just hums. Harry strokes his fingers through Niall's hair, admiring his new blond streak. "What did you talk about?" he asks softly. 

"Footie," Niall hums. "His kid. You." 

Harry squeaks. "Me?"

Niall looks up at Harry with unreadable blue eyes. It's not often that Harry doesn't know just what's going on in his head, even if he's sometimes a beat too late to curb it the way he wants. To Harry, Niall's head is his Harry's familiar second home. He swallows. "Didn't hate him, if that's what you thought," Niall says softly. Harry wonders what it is about invoking Zayn's name that makes them all go quiet, favoring whispers over regular conversation volume.

"It's not," Harry says, though it was. "Sorry." 

Niall shrugs as much as he can flat on his back, yesterday's button-up shirt crumpled from where he'd been sleeping on it. He slides his hands around Harry's back and pulls him in close, his chin tilted up like he likes the way Harry smells. Easy as that, he's forgiven for thinking Niall had a hateful bone in his body. Harry takes a deep breath. “Think we have time for a shag before the other lads wake up?” Niall asks, cutting his eyes left to right like Liam or Louis might be hiding behind the curtains. “Yeah?”

Rumour jumps off Harry’s bed and curls up in his favorite spot on the rug in the bathroom under the hot air vent. Harry slips off the bed to lock the adjoining door, to hell with whatever the other lads think, and crawls up the bed to settle on Niall’s legs. “How’s that hangover doing?”

“I don’t get hangovers,” Niall says stubbornly. Harry could set his watch by Niall sometimes, honestly. He slides his hands under the hem of Harry’s shirt and Harry sheds his fleece pullover right away. He flattens out on top of Niall, whose mouth opens at the first touch of Harry’s tongue. He tastes like the liquor he’d been drinking and the faintest traces of his usual toothpaste, and Harry hums, sucking Niall’s lower lip into his mouth.

“Missed this the last few days,” Niall sighs, spreading his knees so that they’re pressed together more comfortably.

Harry fans his fingers out over Niall’s chest, feeling his heart thump solidly against Harry’s palm. If he concentrates, he can smell Niall’s cologne and the guitar wax he uses to keep his guitars shining. He smells like home, Harry realizes suddenly. Somewhere between sucking him off in a loo in the south of France and sleeping on his couch together instead of his bed in Niall’s house in London, he’s started smelling like home.

Of course, if Harry’s honest with himself, it started a long, long time before that. Before they even pretended to pretend that they loved each other. Maybe it’s like Niall said, that they don’t really have a beginning. They’re just picking up from the middle.

Niall slips his hands down the back of Harry’s joggers, his palms pressed flat up and down Harry’s back like he just likes the feel of his skin. “You smell,” he murmurs, nosing down Harry’s throat. He sucks briefly on Harry’s pulse.

“Went for a jog, lazy bones,” Harry answers. He sounds unbelievably fond, even to his own ears. “Almost went into Tesco,” he adds.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Niall says. “We’ve got dinner with my da later.”

“I love being his favorite, always makes Louis so jealous,” Harry grins.

Niall makes a wordless sound of appreciation when Harry grinds down against him. “Jesus. No, I meant – just me and you.”

It takes a moment for it to click. Harry swallows, Niall’s knee pressing Harry down, keeping him close. “You told Bobby about us?”

“‘Course,” Niall answers. He pulls back as much as he can to look at Harry’s face. Niall’s mouth is red and already swollen, he’s as delicate as a peach. His throat is so flushed that Harry can still see his own teeth marks in Niall’s skin. “It’s Bobby, Haz,” he says, stroking his fingers down the side of Harry’s face.

Harry’s not sure how to argue with him without making it into some big ordeal, which really, it doesn’t need to be. It’s just that Harry loves Bobby so much, and he doesn’t want him thinking that – he’s going to see him for the rest of his life, probably, sex with Niall or no. It’d be such a shame if Bobby blamed him for messing things up, or if Niall told him the awful things he knows about Harry, like how vain he can be.

“What’s the matter?” Niall asks, cupping Harry’s face between his hands. He strokes the tops of his cheeks with his thumbs, and Harry closes his eyes. “It’s just Bobby.”

“I know, I…”

Harry can feel Niall’s breath hitch in his chest. “Everything’s going well, right? Like,” he laughs, but it’s not a real laugh. It occurs to Harry that Niall might just be as insecure as Harry feels most of the time, and it makes him unbearably protective. “We’re good?”

He’s so pliant and willing under Harry, even with his heart rate jumping about like crazy. Kind and warm and trusting, good all the way down to his hollow bird bones.

“Yeah,” Harry says. Tries not to let it feel like a lie. “Just wish I’d been there.”

Niall rolls his eyes. He laughs in relief. “He practically threw a party in your honor,” he tells Harry, who puts his face back to Niall’s neck, stays there until the churning waves in his stomach have quelled, and then he kisses Niall for everything he’s worth.

Louis comes knocking before they can get freaky, so Harry heads to the shower. He listens to Niall open the door to him, his voice deep and hoarse. “Lost the key to my room, man, aye, had to crash with Haz last night…”

Harry turns the water on, takes his clothes off, gets into the shower. The door opens just a few minutes later, while Harry’s still only in part two of his four-step deep conditioning regime.

“Haz,” Niall whispers.

“What?” Harry asks. He definitely doesn’t jump in the air and almost slip and bust his arse on the landing. Definitely not.

“Liam’s going downstairs to breakfast with Louis.”

Harry blinks. “What are you doing out there, then? Get in here.” He twitches back the shower curtain to watch Niall throw off his jumper and shimmy out of his jeans, and then he’s stepping under the hot spray beside Harry.

Some bathrooms, Harry has always thought, are a little _too_ well-lit. This one borders on dingy, but there’s a little window above their heads letting in cool blue morning light, and the shower curtain glows a faint gold from the light spilling in from the bedroom. Niall’s hair, and his new blond streak, are lit to a soft warm glow, and his skin looks marvelously smooth and bright in comparison, interrupted only with a spray of freckles across his shoulders and up the side of his neck like chocolate shavings on top of an ice cream.

Harry walks his fingers along the dots, shuffling to get Niall under the spray of hot water. “Boiling hot,” Niall murmurs, reeling Harry in.

“It sets the conditioner better,” Harry reminds him. Niall’s hair used to be like straw sometimes back when he bleached it. It’s better now, but, “Here,” Harry says. He squeezes a quarter-sized dollop onto the palm of his hand and works it through Niall’s hair. Niall goes boneless with it. His head rolls back against Harry’s palm. “Now we wait,” Harry says, his voice sounding aquatic and submerged behind the spray of the showerhead.

“Perfect,” Niall murmurs, sinking to his knees. He slides his hands down the backs of Harry’s legs and up again, his broad firm palms on Harry’s calves, and Harry shivers. Harry reaches up and redirects the showerhead away. Niall presses his thumbs into Harry’s hipbones, stops to suck a bruise onto the top of Harry’s thigh.

Harry keeps massaging his fingers through Niall’s hair, enjoying the way Niall’s eyes flutter shut and his head rolls back into Harry’s palm before he shakes himself. “Due for a shave, you are,” Harry observes. The dark stubble on Niall’s jaw is sharp and prickly against Harry’s inner thighs, not at all in a bad way.

“Was thinking of growing it for a bit,” Niall says, and takes Harry down. He drags it out sometimes, wanting Harry all but fallen apart at the seams before he lets him come; that’s not how it is today, not with another day of recording to get to, dinner later with Bobby, maybe a movie after here in Harry’s hotel room or a couple of nonalcoholic beers with the lads. Harry tips his head back against the tile wall and breathes.

Writing isn’t such a big deal when it’s just Harry on his own. When it’s all four of them, plus Dan and two sound techs and their session musicians, somehow songs have a way of becoming monsters. “Christ, I’ve got to get out of here,” Louis says, rubbing his face with his hands. “Let’s let Niall and Liam finish this one, eh, Haz?”

Harry cocks his head. “You want to get lunch?”

Louis shrugs. “Or tattoos, I don’t really care. We’ve been working on the same song for the past,” he checks his watch. “Four straight hours. Let’s take a break, huh?”

“Kind of unlike you to walk out on a session,” Harry observes. The chill winter air of late November rushes straight through Harry’s clothes, raises goosebumps on his skin. He and Louis mosey in the direction of the driveway. Four black Range Rovers, it’s like they’re trying to be noticed, Harry thinks.

“Perrie says I’m an unbearable twat,” Louis says, all fondness in his voice.

“How’d that one come about, then?” Harry asks, furrowing his brow. “You signed her, she came in for a meeting, you boned on your desk?”

Louis elbows him sharply in the side. “Shut the fuck up.”

Harry dodges away. “Sorry.” It’s still a little weird when Louis looks straight at him, let alone touches him. Like none of that other stuff ever happened, or at least like it never mattered. Their elbows brush together on their slow stroll and Louis doesn’t jerk away. Maybe it won’t have mattered.

“No, but, uh. I was having a rough – a _really_ rough – day, and we’d talked a little about getting drinks sometime, and she, uh. Told me to snap out of it, basically.”

Harry wants to say, _But you didn’t._ For once in his life, he knows better.

“And then she, y’know, tried to help when I couldn’t. Loyal, she is,” Louis says, like he could be talking about any one of his siblings. It sounds a little too soppy, is all. “Kind.”

“What do the kids think of her?”

“They haven’t really met yet.” Louis kicks a stray rock out of their path. The long grass curls over the side of the gravel pathway. It’d probably cover it completely in just a few months, if not for the gardeners that keep this property in check. Just beyond a barbed wire fence, black and white cows moo sullenly. A mother swats her calf with her tail and the calf sits down in the grass like a pouty toddler. “We’ve just been friends.”

Harry scratches his head. It’s such a goddamn complicated web of relationships, he thinks. Or maybe it’s that it’s so simple, like the dotted lines in amusement parks that connect one ride to another to the toilets to the pretzel stand. It’s just that sometimes love burns out and the line on the map fades away, and the things seem disconnected, adrift. “Do you ever talk about him? Zayn?”

“We did a lot, in the beginning. I think I was more mad at him than she was,” Louis admits.

“You’re not anymore?” Harry asks. Louis’s always been good at playing nice for the sake of people he loves, like letting his stepfather into his life to help with the other babies. He’ll do just fine if Briana ever gets married, Harry thinks.

Louis takes a deep breath. He lets it out in a single burst of air, like their new breathing coach has been showing them how to do. Harry and Louis are really benefiting from her. “The thing is,” Louis says slowly, his Yorkshire accent as familiar as one of Anne’s puddings, “I’ve just got so much other shit to worry about, you know?”

Harry laughs, thinks about it some more, and then bends over double, his hands braced on his knees.

Louis kicks Harry’s toes. “Hey,” he says, not sounding pissed at all. He waits for Harry to look up. “That wouldn’t be true without you. Like, bringing the boys back together.”

“That was all of us,” Harry says.

“And,” Louis talks over him, “sorting out your thing with Niall. It’d be awful hard to have the band if –”

Harry cuts him off, “We’ve been sleeping together and we’re having dinner with his da tonight. He wants to buy me a new _mattress_ , I…” Didn’t realize how freaked out he was, for one, Harry thinks. He’s lost all control of his breathing, so he sits down on the gravel path. The stones are cold on his arse and this close to the ground, he can smell the cow pies just on the other side of the fence.

“Yay,” Louis says, looking down on Harry with his hands in the pockets of his knee-length coat. “Yeah? You’ve always been stupid over him.”

“Yeah, just…” Harry looks up at the cloudy sky over Louis’s shoulder. Ireland isn’t LA, where it’s sunshiny almost every day of the year. It’s cloudy so much of the time, and the shit weather just reminds Harry of that first trip he ever made to this country, and the ring he gave back. “He married someone else,” Harry says, pinching his bottom lip.

Louis says, “Ah. You don’t think he loves you as much.” Louis’s voice is so sad, and Harry’s distantly grateful that Louis hadn’t jumped to defend Niall. It’s not like Harry’s accusing him of anything, not like he’s saying anything.

“ _We’re always going to disappoint him._ ” The words ring and ring in Harry’s head, louder than Niall’s steady hands cooking them a fry-up the morning after or picking out notes to the songs Harry’s written on his guitar, helping him make the sound in his head into reality.  

Lou clucks his tongue. “So the not telling anyone thing, it’s…”

Harry raises his hands. “Easier,” he admits. “Neater, for him, when he…”

“For such a big sopping romantic, you’re kind of sad, you know?” Louis asks.

Harry tilts his head back to look at his oldest friend. “Well, yeah.”

“C’mon,” Louis jerks his head. “We’re going to eat some fried pickles, and for once in your life, you’re not going to be an absolute drama queen.”

“That’s all?” Harry squints up at him. He accepts Louis’s hand, lets him pull him up. “Eat some pickles?”

Louis shrugs. “I clearly don’t know what I’m doing,” Louis says, after a pause. “If it’s good now, just enjoy it, eh?”

Harry discovers he _really_ doesn’t like fried pickles, which is fine with Louis, who gladly picks through the basket while Harry watches the Arsenal game on the telly in the pub they found. When they get back to recording, Liam and Niall have finished the song that had them stumped all morning and moved on to another one. “Thank God you’re back,” Niall breathes. “Tag in for us, we’re starvin’.”

“And bring me back a hamburger,” Daniel calls, adjusting his headphones. So Harry grabs a journal from the heap on top of the piano, bites the cap off his pen, and gets to work.  

***

“Are you nervous?” Niall asks, watching Harry fidget with the cuffs of his shirt. The cuffs are velvet, as is the collar, even though the rest of the shirt is silky and light. The fabric feels so smooth against his back and stomach, it’s why Harry had wanted to wear this shirt, but now he’s wondering whether anyone can see the sweat spots through the floral pattern.

“No,” Harry says, folding his arms across his chest. His breath trails condensation, and he shivers on the doorstep of Bobby’s house, waiting for Niall’s da to come and let them in. He should have worn a blazer. Or a jumper. Or something more like, well, what a bloke who’s been working at Tesco all his life would wear, like Niall’s own practical button-up shirt.

Niall slides his phone into his pocket and pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “It’s just Bob,” he says dubiously. “You’ve met him, like, thirty times.”

Harry only nods, so Niall pries Harry’s clammy hand away from his side and curls his fingers around Harry’s. “He already loves you,” Niall says quietly, and the way he says it, it sounds like “ _I love you_ ,” like that’s all that matters. Harry greets Bobby with a smile.

Like Niall, Bobby is a tough guy to be uncomfortable around. He sticks an apple cider in Harry’s hand and points him in the direction of his iPod hub so Harry can queue up some tunes for them. Harry very nearly puts Adele’s 25 on, but then he remembers how much melodramatic moping he did around his house in LA to “When We Were Young,” and he picks Bob Seger instead. “Roll Me Away” echoes around Bobby’s little two-story house, the same house that he’s been living in since Greg was a tiny baby and he was still married to Maura, and Bobby raises his beer in a toast.

Bobby’s house smells like the roast he has simmering in a CrockPot on the kitchen counter, and a little like the mud and grass stuck to the bottom of the boots he walks to work in sometimes. Not so much as it gets colder. He’s as uncluttered as Niall, which makes each of his personal affects that much more important, interesting. Harry studies the framed photos on his fireplace while Bobby and Niall argue about how much onion salt to add to the roast.

There’s a family portrait of Bobby and Maura with their babies when Greg must’ve been no more than four, Niall just a soft round thing with a dark tuft of hair on the top of his head. A picture of Greg holding Theo in the delivery room, Denise smiling tiredly from the hospital bed. Niall, aged fourteen, wearing a footie uniform and a brace on his knee. And one of the boys from the band that Harry picks up to take a better look at.

Harry’s mum has tons of pictures of him, but he’s usually doing stuff in the photos she has framed and put up around the house: performing in a show, accepting an award, that kind of thing. Bobby has a framed picture of Niall sat around in his pants with a guitar on his lap, Louis and Zayn perched in front of a telly with their eyes on their Xbox game, Liam lounging close by with Sophia’s head in his lap.

“I remember this,” Harry says quietly, when Niall approaches. “I took this picture.”

“On my phone,” Niall answers, just as soft. He takes the picture familiarly into his hands, and it strikes Harry that he must’ve looked at this one a lot. Maybe he’d even had it up around his own house before he brought it over to his dad’s.

“We look like babies,” Harry says, although they don’t, really. They just look young, like young adults. “Why that one?”

Niall’s face colors. “Don’t slag me off for being a sap,” he warns Harry, because he totally is one. “But, uh, I dunno. Just a good picture, right? Kind of…kind of thought it was, like, how you saw us. Y’know. All together, like. Don’t even start,” he warns him, smiling. Niall puts his hand on Harry’s arm, a nice soft touch.

Harry puts the picture back on the shelf. “You are officially the sappiest member of the band,” Harry says, never mind Louis’s face every time one of his kids answers the phone so Louis can ask them about their day or the way Liam sticks a photo of Sophia up on every mirror in every dressing room they’ve ever been to.

“Get off,” Niall says, acting like he’s going to drag Harry’s head down and give him a noogie.

“Careful with the hair, Horan, it’s insured,” Harry cries, just to be a prat.

“Stop killin’ each other and come eat,” Bobby interrupts them. Harry looks up at Niall’s dad, and he takes it back. Bobby’s the sappiest member of One Direction by a mile.

Niall buckles himself into the passenger seat of Harry’s car. Harry’s stomach hurts from how much roast and potatoes and carrots he’d eaten, never mind the chocolate cake aftereward. “Told you he’d like you,” he teases, squeezing the back of Harry’s neck.

“Likes me _best_ ,” Harry corrects, so that Niall will know he’s comfortable with it. Harry starts the car and they rumble down the road for no more than a few miles, Mullingar is such a small town. Niall keeps his eyes trained out the window, on the place where he grew up. Harry wonders what it’s like to have come back to record his reunion album. He hopes it’s a good feeling.

“Be nice if I still had a house here,” Niall remarks. “Haven’t had a proper shag in ages.”

“Well, then, I have some good news for you,” Harry says.

Niall raises one eyebrow. “You bought a house here?”

“No.” To himself, Harry wonders how much Belvedere House would go for, actually. It’d be awesome to live in a castle. “No, I got us that extra room we talked about.”

Niall perks right up. “Yeah?”

The honeymoon suite comes complete with rose petals on the bed and unlit candles on the entertainment center and bedside table. Actually, Harry brought the candles in earlier, because they’re pretty. He also brought condoms and lube, because as much as he’s missed Niall’s hairy chicken legs tangled with his under the blankets and the way he sometimes punches Harry awake by accident, he’s missed a real shag, too. 

“What the,” Niall asks, looking up. Harry drops his jaw. He hadn’t even noticed the mirrors on the ceiling. He starts bouncing on his heels.

“You have to fuck me,” he says. “So I can watch.”

“What do you normally do, lie back and think of England?” Niall jokes, reeling Harry in by a fistful of his shirt. How he has the concentration and dexterity to unfasten the buttons, Harry can’t fathom.

Harry runs his palms down Niall’s side, the regular bump-bump-bump of his ribs and the swell of his arse and the tops of his thighs. “There’s a Jacuzzi, too,” he murmurs.

“Yeah?” Niall asks. “‘S that what you want to do?”

And, well, that sounds like a brilliant idea, so Niall gets the water going and Harry goes around lighting all the candles he brought over. “One of these is grass,” Harry informs Niall. “For you.”

“But we’re in Ireland,” Niall points out. “It already smells like grass here.”

Harry puts the candle back on the dresser. “Yeah, but now it smells even _more_ like grass. It’s like a grass topiary.” Which he’s pretty sure isn’t the right word, but he brushes past it before Niall can call him out. “It’s like if vanilla-scented apples grew on crabgrass bushes.”

Niall sniffs, and then he frowns, nodding. “Y’know, it actually smells pretty good.”

Hotel staff left them a bottle of wine, so they pass it back and forth in the Jacuzzi with all the jets going, the water cranked up to one hundred and ten.

“We’re such popstars,” Harry observes. He settles against the side of the tub. Niall’s legs are stretched out beside Harry, and with the mind-melting heat of the tub and the alcohol pumping through his veins, Harry’s visions contracts until it’s like Niall is all he can see. Niall’s flushed skin and the freckles standing starkly out on his throat and the dark stubble on his jaw, his blue, blue eyes. “God, you’re beautiful.”

“Just ‘cos you love me,” Niall says, so of course Harry has to move to the other side of the tub, water sloshing over the side, to kiss Niall. Harry’s kissed Niall lots of ways: a close-lipped kiss when they were sixteen, toothy and almost angry, that time after they’d been to see Lindsey, fast and desperate, because someone’s surely about to come get them for something. Now he kisses Harry so deep Harry feels like he’s turning inside out.

When Niall starts fisting Harry slowly, he pulls back. “Wanted –” he starts. _Everything_ , he might well say.

“Can do,” Niall nods. “Just let me do this for you first, huh?” One thing Harry doesn’t remember until he’s already grinding down into Niall’s lap, fast and close to coming, is that hot water makes your blood rush through your veins faster. Makes it easier to come, also makes Harry _way_ drunker than he thought he was. He slumps against Niall’s shoulder, Niall’s arm holding him close, and thinks he might pass out. “Thought that only happened in pornos,” Niall laughs, sounding breathless.

“I might be dying. You were too good, I’m dead,” Harry says, closing his eyes. Niall reaches over and turns the jets off, unplugs the tub with his toes. When the cool air has made him cold enough to shiver, Harry pulls back.

“Good?” Niall asks, petting at Harry’s eyebrows. He’s probably making a crazy face, Harry realizes. He tries to make himself look less besot, or at least demure. Niall’s hard in his lap, probably harder because Harry’s practically sitting on his dick. Harry nods. He takes the time to quickly towel his hair dry, so that it’s a fluffy mess of curls, because it occurs to him that he’ll see himself in the mirrors on the ceiling, as well. “Trying to impress yourself?” Niall asks, teasing.

They pull back the blankets first, and then Harry arranges the pillows the way he likes on the bed before he piles on. Coming once already has taken the desperate edge off tonight for him, makes him feel loose in the joints, like he’s had a great massage. He lays down and watches Niall step away from Harry’s case, where he’d stowed the lube. His new blond streak cuts through his dark brown fringe like a lightning bolt.

Niall starts slow, like always, because he doesn’t want to hurt him. His eyebrows jump toward his hairline when his finger’s met with little resistance. “Did you already…?”

“Didn’t want to wait,” Harry admits. It’d been fuck-all uncomfortable in the loo in his own hotel room, especially with stupid Liam just on the other side of the door, asking whether he could borrow Harry’s phone charger, but it’s worth it now, for the look on Niall’s face.

“Christ, I love you,” Niall breathes. He works Harry open quickly, but then he pauses, condom in hand. “I haven’t…I mean, I know we’re – but I didn’t, with anyone else, so I’m not, like. I’m clean.”

Harry wrenches his eyes away from mirrors on the ceiling and the flush crawling up the back of Niall’s neck to look at his face. Theirs is such an easy relationship, really. Most of the time it’s jokes and sex, and here and there like the copses of oak and elm trees growing alongside the stream that runs behind Anne’s house are _I love you_ and _why don’t you just take a key to the house on your way out, bring back bagels_.

It’s not as crushing as Harry always thought it’d be, realizing that he’s neck deep in a serious relationship. It’s more like he’s bursting from the inside out, like he’s so full of that dense, hot feeling he’d had the first time they fucked after Niall told him he wasn’t married anymore. _Love_ is too simple or not specific enough, because Harry loves every baby he meets on the street and most of the cast of Friends and socks fresh out of the dryer. It’s just something more, something adult and fully realized, when he’s with Niall.

Harry wishes he could find a way to verbalize that feeling. It’s too new, flowing red hot like molten rock over his skin, through his veins, so that when it cools he’ll be remade over with it entirely. For now, he pulls Niall down into a kiss. Niall lines them up and presses in, slow and careful, without moving away.

“Good?” he checks, leaning back. His knees slip a little on the silky sheets, and Harry braces his hands on Niall’s thighs. He looks past Niall’s flushed face to the mirrors on the ceiling and good God, he should’ve brought his camera. The muscles in Niall’s back are thrust into sharp relief by the warm candlelight playing against his skin. Harry watches himself reach around and press his fingers to the divots at the bottom of Niall’s spine, and he can actually see Niall shiver a foot from his face, his shoulder blades flaring against his skin.

It’s so _, so_ much better than filming them having a shag, because Harry can see it all from two angles like this. Niall’s serious face, the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile he doesn’t even know he’s wearing. His mouth is red, and close, and his eyes hardly move from Harry’s face. The muscles in the backs of his legs flex at the same time as his abs when he thrusts in, and it’s like watching a symphony take physical form, it’s that good.

“I’m close,” Niall warns Harry.

“No, no,” Harry says, digging his fingers into Niall’s forearms. He drops his hips into the pillow beneath him, no longer thrusting up to get Niall as deep as possible. “Not yet, c’mon.”

Niall leans forward to tuck his face into Harry’s neck, and the angle changes, Niall’s knees slipping on the sheets pushing him in. “Just,” Harry babbles, “just stay there.”

The tension builds in Niall’s shoulders and spreads down his back, his hands curling into tight fists in the sheets. “Alright, okay,” Harry says, and Niall comes with what’s almost a sob. Harry didn’t let him pull out, and he can feel it all more sensitively than ever before, the splash of Niall’s breath on his sweaty neck and the slender, mechanical beauty of Niall’s body covering his. Harry comes before Niall can even get his hand around him.

“Put that on your spreadsheet,” Harry says. He flails a hand out until he lands on Niall’s chest. Niall catches his hand and cradles it close. “Best sex yet.”

Niall’s quiet, catching his breath. Then, “How’d you know about the spreadsheet?” So Harry rolls over, smearing his come between them. Niall groans, and then he pulls the sheet and duvet up from the bottom of the bed. “Shower after a kip.”

“Sure,” Harry says, knowing they’ll both pretend it’s true. He falls asleep with Niall still clutching his hand to his chest, Niall’s face still bright with that private smile. The one that’s just for Harry.

Louis raises both of his eyebrows at them when they come downstairs to breakfast together, and then he pushes over the carafe of syrup. They record the song that everything came together on in one smooth take, and when it comes time to mix the album, Dan and the sound engineers leave in the boys’ laughter trailing away at the end of the song.

***

The next few months pass faster than Harry would’ve ever believed, and he’s been on world tours that seem to have lasted just days. They wrap up the album at the beginning of December, and a week later, all four of them sit down at a long table in London with a background lettering Louis’s record company to announce that they’re back from the hiatus.

No one, not even Liam, could’ve expected that half of their interviewers would’ve celebrated.

Harry and Niall spend Christmas Eve with Bobby in Mullingar for the Twelve Pubs of Christmas. Harry has no memories of it, but he’s so hungover on Christmas morning that Niall offers to drive him home to Holmes Chapel himself. Harry can’t take him away from Theo, who adds the new toy fire truck Harry got him to his collection with glee.

Bobby gives Harry the picture of the band at the breakfast table with Greg and Denise on one side of the table, Niall and Maura on the other. On the carpet, Rumour and Theo are tussling over one of Niall’s old trainers. “Figured it belongs with you,” Bobby shrugs. There’s probably not any way he could understand what it means to Harry, but it’s enough that he gave it back to him at all on sheer trust. Harry puts his elbow in a jar of jam, reaching across the table to give Bob a hug.

Niall sees Harry off at the door. “You sure you’ve got everything?”

“Everything but you and your great bum,” Harry says, so Niall rolls his eyes and lets him go easy, with just a kiss to the corner of his mouth and a promise to see him for his birthday.

After so much time together, it’s strange to be apart from him. Like Niall’s mere presence is a layer of comfort and security against the world. Which, Harry reckons, is probably the point. He sleeps on the plane and lands in London in what feels like the blink of an eye.

He offered to rent himself a car and drive the rest of the way home, but Gemma insisted on picking him up, so he’s met at the gates by Gemma, who’s holding Zoe in the baby carseat she’s quickly growing out of. Harry could blink, and he’d see his sister again, that first Christmas after the band went on hiatus. He blinks, and she’s still there, baby in hand, same girl as she ever was. Harry smiles.

Security escorts them away from the mob of fans who somehow knew where to find him, and all Harry can do is flash a grin and a wave. Christ, it’s such a Christmas present that they’re there. Even if it means he’ll never have the dramatic airport welcome where he drops his luggage and runs down the hallway into his loved one’s arms. Some things you give up in time.

Harry sits in the backseat so he can hold Zoe’s hand with his forefinger and thumb, and she stares up at him, her chocolate brown eyes so intelligent. So like his sister. They Skyped three days ago, but Harry could swear she’s grown since then.

“Shall we stop for snacks?” Gemma asks, so Harry buys a bunch of cheap convenience store candy for the ride home on Christmas day, where Anne’s probably made them a turkey with all the fixings. “How was it?” Gemma finally asks, when they’ve turned off the highway. The heath rolls on in every direction, just as mind-bogglingly boring and flat as it was when Harry was a kid. He’s lucky that he loves it even more now.

“Fell in love,” Harry answers, trusts his sister to be as smart as he knows she is.

“Don’t think you ever stopped being in love,” Gemma says. And, well. Maybe she’s even smarter than he thought.

Anne and Robin greet them at the door. Robin pulls Harry into a bone-crushing hug, smelling as ever of cigars and the special soap they use at the dry cleaners’, and Harry hugs him back tight. Anne folds him into her arms next, like he’s still small enough to loop his arms around her waist and hide his face in her skirt.

Harry takes his bag upstairs to his old bedroom and drops it onto the bed. It’s almost the same as ever. Anne brought in a fresh vase of flowers and replaced the fading blue curtains with soft yellow ones, and the pillowcases on the bed are a clean, stark white. She’s also moved over some of the stuff from her Harry museum of the other bedroom so that Zoe will have her own room when she visits. Zoe’s going to love the chest full of stuffed animals Anne brought in.

Harry bumps into Brian on his way downstairs. “You’ve slept!” he crows, feeling the wrinkles by his eyes crease when he smiles. The fondness he’s felt for Brian has grown, gotten softer, like he’s a real brother, for no real reason. It just takes time.

Brian says, “Unless we have another one,” so of course Harry hurries downstairs to find out when he gets to become a godfather twice over. They’re not even proper Catholics. He can be godfather to two kids, right?

He finds Anne in the kitchen preparing finger sandwiches and tea, so Harry helps her around the sandwich pieces on serving platters. Rumour keeps a weather eye on Zoe at their feet, and Harry pats him on the head, drops him a stray chunk of roasted turkey for being so good with kids. “Did you have a good time with the Horans?” she asks, like he’s a little boy just back from a sleepover up the lane. “Have you been eating well?”

“I had a very nice time, and yes,” Harry laughs. “I, uh,” he scratches his head. He’d come resolved to tell Anne about him and Niall but now that he’s standing here in her bright white kitchen, he’s not quite sure how. He’s never been able to keep a secret from her, so he’s just not spoken to her very much, and he doesn’t want her to be hurt. He doesn’t mean to hurt anyone.

“Well, then you can invite him over for New Year’s,” Anne says crisply. “If Bobby Horan gets to have his son’s boyfriend over for a holiday, so do I.”

“Mum!” Harry flushes all the way down to his toes. Anne swats him on the bum, her eyes deadly serious, so Harry shuffles off down the hall to invite Niall over. The ten foot-tall Christmas tree stands in the foyer of his mum’s spacious house, and underneath are presents for each of them. Harry’s gone the boring route and gotten everyone a journal this year, custom-made and leather-bound, of course. Seems there’s just too much for him to hold onto all by himself. Harry wanders out into the back garden, where Robin’s going to try to grow petunias, again, in the spring.

Niall picks up halfway through the first ring. “You got in okay?” he asks, sounding sleepy.

“Did you just wake up?”

Harry can picture him nodding, his yawn cracking into a nice high note. “Havin’ Christmas dinner with Nan and the rest of the family soon, have to be in fighting form.”

“Alright, well, don’t let anything happen to that face.”

“Deal,” Niall agrees easily. “That all?”

Harry hums. “My mum wants you to come for New Year’s.”

“Your mum, or you?” Niall asks, like they’re fourteen years old.

“Well, I obviously want you to come help my team win flag football. My mum wants you to come so I can properly introduce you as my – as, uh, reintroduce you,” Harry fumbles.

Niall corrects him gently. “Boyfriend,” he says. “As your boyfriend.”

Harry makes a wordless noise somewhere in his mouth.

“If you don’t want to be,” Niall starts, his voice suddenly unbearably fragile.

Harry roams over his mum’s back garden, into the greenbelt he and Niall ambled through once. Harry fell into a stream and caught a fever. “This is our someday, right?” he starts. Niall makes a soft sound of assent. _Someday, maybe._ Finally. “But,” Harry swallows. “Just, sometimes someday doesn’t last forever? And I just don’t, like.” He makes himself say the hurtful thing. It’s something he’s got to be better about. Being honest, even when it hurts. “I don’t want you to stop loving me if we have our someday, and it passes.”

Niall sounds more than a little worried. “When it ends? What are you talking about? Are you – is there an expiration date I don’t know about?”

Harry stops in the middle of the copse of oak and elm trees. He casts his eyes up to the slate gray sky, which threatens snow. Almost as soon as he’s had the thought, a snowflake lands on his cheek. “You married someone else,” Harry finally says. _And I’m always going to disappoint you_. He and Zayn both, and maybe he's every bit the twenty-one year-old boy who strode around a tiny town in northern California with a cowboy hat on his head and Niall at his side. Maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing, really. He still needs Niall's reassurance.

When Niall speaks, he sounds like he’s talking from the bottom of a well, like Harry’s got a direct line to the very fragile heart of someone he’s always thought of as so steady and strong. “I thought maybe – maybe you loved me too much,” he says, his voice flat, like he’s just stating facts. “You’ve always wanted a family, kids.”

“Everybody we know has kids,” Harry starts weakly. “Could just borrow theirs, couldn’t I? It’s not that important, I don’t want –”

“ _I_ wanted those things for you,” Niall cuts in. He sounds just enough like Maura that Harry pauses, hearing her protective streak, a mile wide. “I thought maybe it was too good, you know? The way you loved me, and I loved you. Like, of course we couldn’t have that last part. It’d have been fair, like.”

Harry thinks of the life he’s had. “Life isn’t fair,” he tells Niall, and it’s a victory. Life isn’t fair, and he’s the luckiest bumbling sodding popstar that he’s ever met.  

“Yeah,” Niall agrees. “And I wasted enough time.”

“Wasted” isn’t the term Harry would use. He thinks of the half dozen or so lovely people he’s met that he would’ve married in another life, if he hadn’t had this one. If he didn’t love someone in every way who loved him back the same. "She wasn't happy, either," Niall will admit under the cover of darkness, one day when he's ready. Guilt lingers long after both he and Aisling have settled into new relationships, new lives. It's good that he feels bad, Harry reckons. Tells him so. 'S what makes him Niall. 

Harry takes a deep, deep breath. He lets it out and turns back toward home, tucking his face into his collar for warmth. “I love you, you know?” he tries. It’s like steadying a ship, like finding the horizon and putting the ship back on a level by that.

“I love you, too,” Niall answers.

There. Even keel.

Harry worries over his bottom lip. “Plus there’s, like, totally adoption, you idiot,” and he listens to Niall laugh, loud and long and full.

Niall’s still laughing when Harry scrapes mud and snow off his boots, and when he carries his phone into the house, Anne steals the phone from Harry so that she can personally demand Niall’s presence at the Styles-Twist annual family New Year’s bash. Harry can just about hear Niall’s enthusiastic response from his spot on the couch beside his sister, with his brilliant goddaughter on his lap.

***

“I’m going to have to bring Wes,” Harry tells Niall first thing when he slides into his car outside Heathrow. He leans over the center console for a quick kiss, and then he settles back in his seat to buckle himself in. Niall tosses a look over his shoulder and then he pulls out of the passenger pick-up area, a hat on over his hair and sunnies over his eyes even through his tinted windows.  

“Who?” Niall asks.

“The bellman at my flat,” Harry answers patiently. “The one who gets off to ‘Stockholm Syndrome.’”

Niall thinks. “Oh, I remember him,” Niall says, his voice warm. “Doesn’t he have a bunch of grandkids in the city, though?”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry says. Huh. He checks the list on his phone. “Well, that settles that. Uh, we need to find Rumour a new kennel, obviously, for when we’re away.”

“Already done,” Niall says. They pull smoothly out onto Tunnel Road, the wheels of Niall’s car turning smoothly over the last snow of the year. It crunches inaudibly, and Harry turns his seat warmer up a little bit just because he can. He lifts the cap off Niall’s head and presses a smacking kiss to the side of his face. Then he rolls down the window and tosses the hat out.

Niall makes a sound of complete surprise. “What was that about?”

“I’m not living in a house with that hat,” Harry says, and Niall laughs the rest of the way home.

Niall pulls into his driveway, and it’s still a surprise to Harry that the house lights are down, that Willie isn’t somewhere inside watching a match on the telly, a load of laundry in the wash. Harry climbs out of his seat and puts his bag on his shoulder, follows Niall inside.

Niall had him a key made weeks ago, sent it by mail to another country because he’s romantic like that. They’ve an appointment with their lawyers to get Harry’s name added to the deed in a couple of weeks while Harry’s still in town. Then they fly to America and kick off the new tour, and from there, Harry knows, it’s a flat-out sprint. Not to any finish line, really, just running for the hell of it, the fun of it.

It doesn’t really feel like Harry’s house. He’s packing up his flat in New York to have his things shipped over, but even with his name on the deed, it’s a little like there’s still the ghost of Niall’s failed marriage lingering over the house. Aisling isn’t a ghost or even a villain; she’s just a person, and she’s no more to blame than Niall is, or less.

Niall hesitates at the kitchen island. Harry always bumps his hip on the edge when he comes downstairs for a glass of water in the middle of the night. Eventually, he reckons, he’ll learn. Niall fidgets the hem of his shirt, and then he stuffs his fists into his pockets.

Harry sets his bag into the mudroom, and then he puts his hands on Niall’s hips.

“I’m not, like, dead set on the way things are set up, and if you want, we could always find another place. When the wind blows from the north the windows rattle, it’s not such a great sound.”

“Niall,” Harry makes his voice soothing. Harry loves this house. He used to daydream about it all the time, when he wasn’t busy moping around feeling sorry for himself. He and Niall would paint the living room themselves, because the dark auburn walls were a little too dark, and Harry’s always wanted to paint a room himself. (In point of fact he’d be better off painting one of the upstairs bedrooms, because he knows himself well enough to know he hasn’t a lick of Zayn’s artistic talent, but still.)

Niall mentioned once, offhand, that he thought he might like to put out a few planters. Somewhere in his pages of Pinterest boards Harry has a bunch of aesthetic gardening pictures that he thought might look good out front, and maybe some of them really wouldn’t grow well in the Irish Midlands, but surely some would. Plus, the planet really needs more bees.

He thought of a few other things. Like where Rumour’s dog bed would best go, and the wine rack in the kitchen cupboard, and maybe a room for Zoe to stay in since Harry’s moving home.

That’s the thing, though. Those were just daydreams. Real life is that this is where Niall was married and where his marriage fell apart, and it takes a lot of work to make flowers grow. Harry smooths Niall’s hair back from his forehead. “I love this house,” he tells him, finally.

"But?" Niall prompts him.

"No buts," Harry shakes his head. He cups Niall's face between his palms and Niall leans into his hand, his eyes soft. Their kitchen with the off-white cabinets and the chestnut floors leads off to the living room where they've shagged on the couch and the recording studio where they'll both have written love songs about each other, and the flower of anxiety in Harry's chest gives an anxious twinge:  _so much to lose._

Not quite everything, though. They'll still be friends, after everything. Harry doesn't think it's so much that Niall never stopped loving him but that he fell in love with him again, so he knows it's possible to fall in and out of love with the same person many times. Maybe that's how you know it's worth it, is when there's still friendship to build on after the glitter fades. It doesn't matter so much that Niall stays in love with him that he keeps loving him, and he's kept loving Zayn. Probably Aisling too. It's a bit like the band, really. As much as they need their breaks, they always come back together, one way or another.  

Harry pats his cheek. “So, have you decided what you want to do for my birthday?”

Niall groans, leaning into Harry’s hand. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve something dirty in mind?”

“Because I do,” Harry says simply. “It involves whipped cream and strawberry sauce.”

“Perfect,” Niall says succinctly. “I do have another thing, though. Lunch tomorrow?”

Harry squints. “Well,” he hedges, proper leaning into Niall now, smelling his soap and his toothpaste. He eyes the counter over Niall’s shoulder, deciding where best to put the flour and sugar for when he has time to bake. “Does it involve whipped cream and strawberry sauce?”

“If I say no, are you going to make me beg?”

Harry smiles, pets the back of Niall’s ruffled hair till it lies flat on his collar. “Begging involves whip-”

Niall just puts his hand over Harry’s mouth.

Harry wakes up to breakfast in bed, which is his first indication that they’re not really going to “lunch.” He makes wild guesses while Niall moves his shit around in his closet to make room for Harry’s coats and boots and collection of printed shirts. Harry was poking around in there for a tie a few days ago and found the old ring that Niall gave him when he was sixteen, the one he gave back. Niall's put it in a little velvet box and stowed it at the back of his sock drawer, and Harry can't wait for him to bring it out again. “Fishing? Shark swimming? Deep sea diving?”

“It doesn’t have to do with water,” Niall drops a dry hint. Harry snickers to himself. Not water. Dry hint. Get it?

Harry takes another bite of his omelet, chews it over thoughtfully. “A cat,” he guesses.

“Aw,” Niall says. Then, “No, not quite.”

“We should get a cat in case there’s mice,” Harry opines.

“My house doesn’t have mice.”

Harry shrugs. “Are we going shopping?”

“No, but we should do that,” Niall says. “Laura was telling me about this antique shop she went to with those wooden ducks you like.”

Harry nods agreeably. He pesters Niall with guesses all the way through their shower, into their clothes, while Niall’s buckling up his seat belt.

“Intolerable, you are,” Niall rolls his eyes. He squeezes Harry’s knee fondly.

Harry twists the keys to Niall’s Tesla and the electric car powers to life. He’s tuned to the classic rock station, so Elton John’s “Rocket Man” starts playing over the car’s speakers. “Where are we off to?”

“Take a left off my street,” Niall starts, not giving anything away.

“Thought we were just going to lunch,” Harry says, raising his eyebrow.

Niall pulls the brim of his snapback down the moment light filters through the windshield. He’s gone full back into low-key mode since they made the announcement that the band’s back and people have taken a definitive interest in them again. They’ve not made a public statement about their relationship because, honestly, nobody needs to know. And it’d generate even more attention.

Niall twists the radio up, relaxing the moment they’re past the gates of his neighborhood and the small army of paps gathered outside. He feeds Harry the directions street by street, which both keeps Harry totally in the dark and builds his anticipation so high he might cry. From no foundation whatsoever Harry decides they must be going to get a puppy, so he spends most of the drive fretting about what Rumour will think, how he’ll adapt to having a baby in the family, whether a puppy can even be housebroken on the road.

In the family. That’s what Harry had thought, in the family, and – and it’s true.

“What are you smiling about?” Niall asks, setting the back of his hand on Harry’s knee. Harry takes his hand.

“Just happy,” Harry shrugs. Niall’s whole face creases up with his smile, and even though he’s still got such a baby face, Harry can see where the wrinkles by his mouth and eyes are going to come in, and Harry squeezes his hand harder.

He maybe should’ve been tipped off by the lettering just above the first floor of the business, but he’s too busy pulling up to a parking space and paying the meter, and then he almost stumbles stepping over the kerb. So it’s not until they’re standing inside and Harry counts three, four, five pianos that he realizes they’re in a music shop. A piano shop, to be exact. His jaw drops, and he automatically reaches out and takes Niall’s hand. “Niall,” he starts uncertainly.

Niall raises his hand at the salesperson, who nods at him with a smile and raises one finger. Then he turns back to the customer he’d been speaking to. “I remember what you said about your nan,” Niall says slowly. He sounds tentative, unsure. “And I know the house doesn’t quite feel like home yet. So I thought… d’you like it?” he asks, with a hopeful smile.

“I love you,” Harry answers. “And this place.”

He moves over to the nearest piano, a dark brown number that makes a solid booming note when Harry presses on the low G. “I don’t know what the difference is,” Niall considers. “So – ah, here he comes.”

“Simon,” the salesman introduces himself. “You must be Niall,” he say to Niall, “and Harry.” Harry nods. He wonders if this middle-aged salesperson at Peregrine’s Pianos knows who they are, or if they’re safely shrouded in anonymity for once in their lives. Sometimes people pretend, and that’s almost as good as.

Simon shows them three pianos, each with metal strings and bits that require maintenance. The moment Harry sees the shiny black one, though, he knows that’s it. It looks like something out of one of those films from the ‘30s and ‘40s that Harry’s nan loved so much, and when he picks out the melody to the band’s new first single, the piano hums with it.

“We’ll take this one,” Niall says. They make plans to have it delivered two days later, never mind the extra cost, since they’re going out of town so soon. It makes Harry unexpectedly sad to pack up house and get ready to start the tour, which he’s not used to. Maybe it’s because he has a real house and a fridge full of his favorite foods to leave behind.

Sales from the first two singles have been good, but they’re all a bundle of nerves before the new album drops. It didn’t even leak this time around, which they seriously considered letting happen. Niall and Louis only won out over not letting it leak by literally sitting on Liam until he gave in, and then they took away Harry's demo of the album. "No faith in me," Harry lamented to Niall, watching him scratch the side of his nose and pushes his glasses up. Niall looked at him over the top of his glasses. "Eh," Harry shrugged, turning away, because, well, they were right. Tickets for tour are on sale and going fast, but not as fast as they did when they were on top of the world. It’s a different feeling, this being unsure and feeling like they have so much to prove. Harry kind of likes it. He knows Louis likes it.

Two weeks before tour kicks off, the album drops. Liam calls Harry at precisely 6am UK time to let him know. “It’s six o’clock in the morning,” Harry says hoarsely, sitting up in bed. “Who’s dying?”

“Nobody is dying, our baby is leaving the nest, our little baby bird of an album,” he says, like Harry doesn’t know. “You’re sleeping through it?”

“I mean,” Harry says. He throws his legs over the side of the bed and shuffles over to the office in the next room. He flips the desk light on and sits down on the easy chair beneath the reading lamp so that he doesn’t wake Niall. It’s kind of like watching a fireworks display, waiting for an album drop. After a while, it’s really not the fireworks that are the good part, it’s watching everybody else’s face. That’s sort of hard to do from Twitter or Instagram. Harry’s just waiting to take the record on the road and see what everybody thinks.

And listeners have a lot of material to wade through. They all liked their new songs so much they couldn’t leave many of them off, so the new record is twenty-two songs long. It’s not a bad number, Harry thinks. It’s an album he’s proud of, that they all are, and that feels like the most important thing. Like this time, they won’t have ended on a goodbye. They won’t have left willingly. Win or lose, that feels like some kind of victory.

“How’d you do it?” Liam asks.

“Do what?” Harry replies, props his ankle up on his knee and thinks seriously about putting lotion on his feet before he goes to bed.

“Get Niall to love you,” Liam says without hesitation. “Or, like, figure your deal out, whatever it was.”

“I…” Harry’s shocked, for some bizarre reason, that Liam knows. Of course he would, they told their families and Louis knew and it’s not like Harry sneaking his hand down the back of Niall’s jeans has ever been subtle, but still. It’s like now that Liam knows, every part of Harry’s immediate world knows, like every part of his brain is awake to the fact that he’s the luckiest person who’s ever lived.

“It wasn’t that,” he finally says. “We just kept getting the timing wrong.”

Liam asks carefully, “How did you know when you got it right?”

Harry thinks about it. “We both said yes at the same time, I guess,” he decides. “Like, not quite waiting, exactly, but hoping.” The way that Louis keeps hoping the Rovers are going to take the league, maybe.

“Louis’s kids are so big,” Liam breaks out. “And I love them, you know? I’m, like, really good at the ninja Barbies game.”

Harry’s competitive side flares, and then he tells himself to calm down. He still makes a mental note to drop by Bri’s soon. Ooh, maybe he can introduce Zoe to Louis’s kids once she’s big enough to play, that would be fun. “Zoe could use some friends,” Harry muses.

“That’s what I’m saying!” Liam bursts.

“Uh, what?”

“I want to have a baby,” Liam says. “Obviously.”

Harry props his head up on his hand. The clock reads 6:31am with no end to this conversation in sight. “And Sophia does, too?”

Liam sucks a breath in through his teeth. “That’s the thing,” he says. “I’m about to ask her.”

Harry sits up in his seat. “And you called me and not Louis?” Harry starts bouncing in his chair.

“Well, Zayn wouldn’t pick up,” Liam says, in his deadpan way, so Harry scowls.

“She’ll be home from Antigua soon, so I’ve got flowers and a teddy bear, and I’m going to ask,” Liam says. “Again.”

Harry goes back into his bedroom and nudges Niall awake. Then he puts Liam on speaker. “Again?” Harry asks. “How many times have you asked Sophia to marry you, Li?”

“Fourt-Fifteen,” Liam amends himself. “She’s always said ‘Not now.’”

“And you think the answer will be different this time?” Niall asks. “Hey, by the way.”

Liam sounds a little abashed when he says, “I, uh.”

“What?” Niall asks. His voice is rocky with sleep, and he’s thrown his arm over his eyes so that he might well still be unconscious.

“Because if she says no this time, I’m not going to ask again,” Liam says. “We’ll do it on her terms, you know? But I thought, right, one last try…”

Harry rolls his head back against Niall’s chest. “The consummate competitive school runner,” Harry observes. “Liam.”

Liam sounds pleased.

“Good for you,” Niall contributes, and then he rolls over and tries to go back to sleep. Harry repositions his head on Niall’s hip.

“You’ll know ‘cos she’ll say yes, Liam,” he reminds him quietly. “That’s all there is to it, mate.”

Liam takes a deep breath. “I think – she’s at the door, I’m going to – I’ve got to go.” He sounds as giddy as a schoolboy.

“Let us know how it goes,” Harry says, and rings off. He tosses his phone down the bed, and then he pokes Niall in the hip. “Hey.”

“What?” Niall groans.

“We’re that couple,” Harry says. “We’re that, like, steady couple that our friends turn to for relationship advice. We’re _that_ couple.”

Niall turns over and blinks his eyes open. “Wouldja look at that?” he asks, so Harry leans down to kiss him.

Peregrine Pianos delivers Harry’s gift the next morning, while Niall’s setting tea out for Liam and Louis. They’re sharing a business call because they finally live close enough to part-time when Louis visits his children.

“Quick, let’s fuck on it before the lads get here,” Harry says.

Niall stops pouring tea to bend double laughing. “Christ. That’s the best pickup line I’ve ever heard.”

“I mean it, too,” Harry assures him. “C’mon, love.”

“Don’t have to ask twice,” Niall shrugs. They don’t have time for a proper shag, but Harry blows Niall on the piano bench, and it’s so, so good when Niall flails his hand out while he’s coming and presses a random bunch of piano keys.

“That definitely goes on the next album,” he says.

Niall leans down to kiss Harry’s lips. “Whatever you want,” he agrees.

Louis and Liam arrive together, Liam with a lei around his neck. It’s half crumpled and also much too small, like maybe Louis had it laying around in his backseat from his kids’ Christmas pageant.

“I’m engaged!” Liam opens his arms wide. Harry and Niall pile in at once, and then Niall sticks his hand out and drags Louis into their group hug, as well. “Boys,” Liam squeaks. “You’re crushing me.”

They celebrate Liam’s engagement with the news that the album’s gone gold. It’s not quite going platinum, but it’ll do. For now. They’ve got a whole tour to promote the thing.

Because they’re a band of narcissists, Niall puts their new album on vinyl. He hands the album sleeve to Harry, who’s sat in the chair beside the record player in the sun room. It’s the first of their albums not to have their faces on it, which Liam was kind of upset about, considering he put all that effort into getting fit.

The album design is simple. Black cover, and the album title in the middle: ONE, in all caps, just like FOUR, because Niall still insists that’s important. Liam’s chevron tattoos have been made to point in, toward each other.

“Oh,” Louis slumps into the couch, Niall and Liam on either side of him. “Think we’ve done alright, boys.”

Harry takes a picture.

***

Red Rocks is Harry’s favorite music venue to date. The outdoor amphitheater is framed on either side by looming cliffs of red Colorado stone, and the desert rolls on toward Denver like their tour bus’s wheels turn smoothly to the next stop. To be fair, Harry’s been saying every venue is his favorite venue since tour started.

“That’s because every one is my favorite,” Harry says smartly when Liam points it out. Some have been special favorites, though. Their first show back and the rest of them took a break while Niall played a song by himself. He'd covered "Tokyo Sunrise" for Harry, who watches him in the spotlight every night from the wings, and doesn't wonder when their someday is over. The thing rom-coms don't mention is that even if the couple ends up together, one of them has to die first of old age eventually, or grow senile, or whatever. If that's how this one ends, Harry will be happy with it. He's happy right here, though, with the desert rock cooling quickly as the sun sets and the stars appearing up above one by one, like wishes.

They’re gathered in a hidden tunnel beneath the arena so that Liam can carve their names into the wall with Niall’s penknife. He’s been doing a shit job of it so far, to be honest. “The stone is too hard,” Liam answers when Louis points this out. “We’re just going to have to go with our initials, lads.” But of course, they all want their own initials to go first. Harry makes eye contact with Niall, who’s watching with his elbow braced on the wall above Liam’s head, and Niall winks at him.

Some forty feet above their heads, the arena is slowly filling with concertgoers excited to see One Direction on another sold-out world tour. One of Harry’s favorite parts of the new setlist is getting to sing “Walking in the Wind” at the end of the set, and then coming back on for the encore, returning just like that song promised them. Some days, Harry really can’t believe his luck.

“Here, I’ve got a better idea,” Liam says, adjusting the pen in his hand. He bends his head back over the wall.

“When are the kids getting in?” Niall asks, checking his watch. Twenty minutes to stage time.

Louis answers, “Eh, I think an hour or so. So if you’re going to misbehave, do it before my kids get here,” he tells them with raised eyebrows. Like he and Liam haven’t been playing laser tag with their iPhones on stage since tour started.

“You heard him, Niall,” Harry says. “No making out onstage past ‘Something Great.’”

Niall nods seriously.

“How’s this, lads?” Liam asks, sitting back on his heels. Instead of their initials, he’s just written “one,” in the same type as the album cover.

Harry smiles. “It’s perfect.”

Paul sticks his head into the stairwell and Liam stands up, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Ten minutes to stage, boys. Come get your mics.”

So they do. Harry slips his hand into Niall’s on the way up to stage, his mic pack pulling a little on the waistband of his jeans, his microphone clutched loosely in his sweaty grip.

Niall squeezes his hand, and he doesn’t let go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me at niallspringsteen.tumblr.com


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